A special series from the Migration Research Group of the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.
By Maeli Farias.
Immigration is a highly politicised and election-defining issue. Across the Global North, conservative, liberal, left-leaning and far-right leaders alike typically adopt hostile, dehumanising stances toward immigrants and refugees, as most explicitly exemplified by Donald Trump’s US presidency and what has become known as ‘fortress Europe’. Similar anti-immigrant policies and attitudes exist in the Global South. However, far-right rhetoric on immigration in this region often follows a different model. This blogpost explores one such case, that of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration (2019–2022) in Brazil.
Although Bolsonaro’s far-right government was retrogressive on many human rights issues, it maintained and even expanded entry programmes for immigrants and asylum seekers, diverging sharply from the practices of many far-right leaders in the Global North, including his ally, Donald Trump. Despite often expressing xenophobic and hostile rhetoric toward immigrants and refugees, Bolsonaro strategically leveraged Brazil’s progressive immigration framework, developed through the early 21st century, and a generally favourable public perception of immigration to advance his political agenda both domestically and internationally. His case highlights how border controls, as a naturalised and widely accepted feature of modern statehood, are employed across the ideological spectrum to serve specific political interests.
Since 2015, a severe shortage of essential goods, widespread socio-political unrest and deprivation in their country have triggered mass displacement of Venezuelans across Latin America, including Brazil. Instead of closing its borders or clamping down on the new arrivals, the Brazilian government, then led by President Michel Temer, launched Operação Acolhida (‘Operation Welcome’) in 2018 to receive Venezuelans arriving at the northern border. It is instructive to note that the crisis in Venezuela did not meet the conceptual frame for asylum under the Geneva Convention of 1951. As such, requests by Venezuelans fell outside the normative international framework for refugee status approval. Strikingly, instead of refusal and deportation, the Brazilian government used the Cartagena Declaration and MERCOSUR residency rights to create legal pathways for Venezuelans to enter and settle in Brazil. Operation Welcome also offered voluntary relocation to migrants once admitted to the country, helping them to move from remote border areas to cities where they would have greater employment and public service opportunities.
Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalistic politician, was elected president a year after the launch of the Venezuelan humanitarian response. Given his radical rhetoric during the campaign, fears grew among those working in humanitarian, civil society and migrant support circles that the programme response would be dismantled. Indeed, one of Bolsonaro’s first acts as President was Brazil’s withdrawal from the UN’s Global Compact on Migration. Yet, to the surprise of many, his government maintained and expanded the Operation Welcome initiative. It committed significantly more resources, further easing entry and migration status regularisation pathways for Venezuelan migrants in Brazil. Furthermore, the administration did not revoke or alter any regulatory measures that facilitated the migration and regularisation of other nationalities in Brazil, such as Haitians, Afghans and Syrians.
Whenever I share my experiences working with immigration in Brazil during Bolsonaro’s administration, people are often surprised to learn that a far-right government supported pro-immigration policies and facilitated the regularisation of immigrants who otherwise would be considered ‘illegals’. It is important to emphasise that Bolsonaro is not a pro-immigration president – far from it. His rhetoric on immigration often aligns with the violent stances and interventions of other far-right leaders.
His seeming pro-immigration approach can be explained in three ways. First, it was ideological. Bolsonaro leveraged the Venezuelan migration issue in support of his opposition to socialism. He often referenced the fact that Venezuelans were ‘fleeing socialism’ to support anti-leftist narrative. In effect, he supported Venezuelan migration to Brazil because in his eyes it vindicated his political messaging that conservative, right-wing actors were the humanitarian actors and ‘socialists’ were not. Second, the Brazilian welcome programme was strongly supported by international agencies such as UNHCR, IOM and EU Humanitarian Aid. The US government also funded the scheme to the tune of USD 46 million. Thus, far from being an exclusive national programme, it had financial benefits and international dimensions that made continuation politically and diplomatically advantageous for the Bolsonaro administration.
A third factor is Brazil’s relatively positive public perception of migration. Unlike other countries shaped by settler colonialism, Brazil has continued to embrace its multiethnic identity and history, making immigration a less politically contentious issue. Although xenophobia persists – particularly at the local level and toward specific groups – it has not become a dominant theme in national discourse. This comparatively open and progressive stance has gradually been institutionalised in governance frameworks, reflecting a broader shift in South American migration policies that began at the close of the 20th century. Brazil’s 2017 Migration Law-13.445/17 exemplifies this trend, emerging from a participatory legislative process grounded in a strong human rights orientation, emphasising the non-criminalisation of irregular migrants.
Within this context, Bolsonaro was able to navigate and utilise an already-established, inclusive legal framework, even as his public rhetoric remained openly anti-immigration. Preliminary findings from my ongoing doctoral research further indicate that, despite the progressive design of programmes such as Operation Welcome, these initiatives often reproduce patterns of marginalisation, particularly for immigrants and asylum seekers who are racialised as non-white. In practice, Brazil’s ‘welcoming’ approach remains selective, failing to guarantee dignified integration and leaving these populations to confront systemic obstacles in accessing rights and settling in Brazil.
In conclusion, taken at face value, the Brazilian case challenges simplistic assumptions about far-right politics and immigration. However, Bolsonaro’s approach reveals how immigration policies, far from being purely ideological, are often strategically contextual, shaped by history, public opinion, geopolitics and vested interests. It invites broader reflection on the complex realities behind human mobility, migration management and how power structures often shape humanitarian responses to fit particular narratives rather than being purely about doing the right thing.
Maeli Farias is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol. She previously worked for two years in the humanitarian response ‘Operation Welcome’ in Brazil and most recently served as a Research Associate on the MMPPF (Modern Marronage: The Pursuit and Practice of Freedom in the Contemporary World) project at the University of Bristol. Her research explores the anthropological dimensions of narratives and everyday experiences to examine critical issues in contemporary migration, such as colonial legacies, belonging and social inequalities.
To read more blogposts on migration and mobilities in Latin America visit the MMB Latin America blog. And to see the full SPAIS Migration Research Group blog series visit the group’s webpage on the MMB website.