MIGRATION POLICIES AND REGULATION IN BRAZIL (1980-2025): BETWEEN SECURITIZATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS

This article´s aim is to develop a critical review of the two last Brazilian migration laws and regulations, as well as of the decrees issued as amendments to laws. It analyses the changes in the State’s dynamic capacities necessary to develop mission-oriented policies and its shortcomings in Brazil. This descriptive study is based on a bibliographic analysis and documental revision of Ministries’ websites, as well as on reports from academics and international organizations. The Statute of Foreigners, an authoritarian law oriented towards guarding national security, was issued in 1980 during the military dictatorship, and it disregarded the protection of migrants´ human rights. It had become obsolete long before the new law of 2017 was passed. The last was approved during democracy after extended negotiations between different sectors in Congress and under the pressure of civic society organizations. Though globally considered as advanced in a humanitarian sense, it reflects a hybrid mixture between two antagonistic political positions: a perspective oriented towards national security/securitization and one towards human rights. The study concludes by discussing the role played by social engagement in the ongoing design of a public National Plan for Migration, Refuge and Statelessness and its implications for migrants´ human rights in Brazil.