Brazil sends Venezuelan migrants to country’s rich southern states
PACARAIMA, Brazil — More than 7.2 million people have left Venezuela since the country’s political, economic and social crisis began last decade. Most have gone to Spanish-speaking countries of South America — with 2.4 million in Colombia alone — and many to the U.S. and Spain.
Further down the list of destinations has been Ven- ezuela’s Portuguese-speak- ing, next-door neighbor: Brazil.
But Brazil has become a popular choice for many Venezuelans partly because of a five-year-old program that offers eligible applicants work permits and even free flights to faraway parts of the huge country. Approvals into the program have surged in the post-pandemic period.
Brazil’s “interiorization” program moves the migrants to other cities with better economic opportunities, especially in the country’s rich southern states. It has taken in about 100,000 of the 426,000 Venezuelans who have migrated to Brazil during the crisis — with the highest monthly rate so far in March of this year with 3,377.
Brazil’s monthly minimum wage currently is $265. A survey of 800 households encompassing 3,529 Venezuelans living in Brazil in June and July of last year showed that 76 percentof them earned up to two minimum wages.
Applicants must submit paperwork, and undergo a physical and interviews.
Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America thanks to billions in oil dollars, but mismanagement by its self-described socialist government and a decline in crude prices plunged it into crisis over the past decade. International economic sanctions meant to topple President Nicolás Maduro have worsened conditions.
Elsewhere in the hemisphere, Venezuelans are making their second or even third migrations as economic opportunities in initial host countries dry up. Most of those coming across the border into Brazil are migrating for the first time, said the Rev. Agnaldo Pereira de Oliveira, director of Jesuit Service for Migrants and Refugees in Brazil.
“They are people who held on until now and no longer could,” Pereira de Oliveira said. “Now come the last ones who had resisted in Venezuela out of attachment to their business, to their home. They say ‘I had a job, but the living conditions no longer exist.’ ”
Brazil’s interiorization program took shape after a period of tensions in the mid- to late-2010s when arriving Venezuelans strained public services in Roraima, which includes both Pacaraima and Boa Vista. At one point, a man set fire to two residences where Venezuelans lived, injuring five people.
Brazil’s southern states like Paraná are not without challenges for Venezuelans. There they must brave much colder weather than they’re accustomed to, and lack of fluency in Portuguese can sometimes be a barrier to formal jobs, meaning some of them become street vendors and Uber drivers.
In Boa Vista, shelters have long been available, but many adults and children sleep on sidewalks or outside a bus station. Some find the shelters overcrowded and overheated. Others do not feel safe or dislike the mandatory early wake-up.