Feb 21 2025| Nº. 155

Editorial

On Wednesday, former President Jair Bolsonaro was formally indicted for, among several other alleged crimes, leading an alleged coup attempt after the 2022 presidential election. Along with 33 others, including former Defense Minister and 2022 vice-presidential nominee Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro could face criminal proceedings if the STF accepts the charges. According to the Attorney General's Office, Bolsonaro's actions were part of a coordinated conspiracy against Brazil’s democratic institutions. The accusations tie Bolsonaro directly to the January 8, 2023 insurrection in Brasília during which thousands of his supporters stormed government buildings in protest of Lula’s election victory. If convicted, Bolsonaro could face over forty years in prison. Although there are still various steps the case must follow, the political implications of Bolsonaro’s potential arrest—which experts consider more likely than not—have already colored debates over the 2026 presidential campaign. Bolsonaro has been hesitant to openly support any other name on the far right to run against Lula, insisting that his allies must continue working to reverse the ruling from Brazil’s main electoral court barring him from seeking office. Bolsonaro’s new legal troubles make his chances of running in 2026 even more remote than they already were. 

Lula returned to the topic of Russia’s war against Ukraine this week after backing off the issue in recent months. He criticized President Donald Trump for only engaging with Russian President Vladimir Putin in discussions aimed at resolving the war in Ukraine. Lula argued that peace could not be achieved without including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, emphasizing that both leaders must be part of negotiations. He also stated that the European Union should not be excluded from peace talks, given its significant involvement in the conflict. Lula reasserted his previous position that countries like China, India, and Brazil could play a vital role in facilitating peace, reaffirming Brazil's commitment to peace missions but making it clear that the country would not send military troops to the region. Trump’s explicit hostility toward Zelensky, who he referred to as a “dictator,” has allowed Lula to reposition himself as a sober mediator in the ongoing conflict after he had been previously accused by members of Joe Biden’s administration of parroting Russian talking points. 

Lula is surely eager for a political reset given that a new poll released this week showed the president with the lowest approval rating he has ever had during his three presidential terms. Since the end of last year, Lula’s approval rating fell from 35% to 24% and his disapproval went up from 34% to 41%, according to a recent Datafolha poll. Experts attribute this sharp decline to rising food inflation, particularly affecting lower-income groups, Lula's traditional base. The alarming numbers set off a new round of infighting within the administration, with some cabinet ministers placing the blame on Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, who has overseen an economic agenda sharply attuned to the expectations of markets and investors. Others, however, note that Lula himself is responsible for the direction of his government and urge coordinated action in the next year to prevent the return of the far right after the next election.

Highlights

• Legal dispute. Two U.S. companies, Rumble and Trump Media, filed a lawsuit in Florida against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The companies – one of which is owned by the U.S. president – ​​argued that Moraes made judicial decisions in Brazil that violated the American Constitution, regarding freedom of expression. The complaint concerns orders given by Moraes to suspend the profile of a Brazilian named Allan dos Santos, convicted of massively spreading false information about the electronic voting machines used in Lula's won elections, and for disobeying restrictive measures imposed on him by the courts in the past. Beyond the merely judicial aspect of the issue, the episode is a harbinger of the political offensive that the Brazilian far right will wage in the coming months and years, reinforced by its allies in Trump's USA.

• Lava Jato (Car Wash). Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli annulled all the cases against Antonio Palocci in Operation Lava Jato. Lula's former Finance Minister and former Chief of Staff to Dilma Rousseff was arrested in 2016 as part of Operation Lava Jato. In 2018, on the eve of the presidential elections, Moro released excerpts from a plea bargain agreement by Palocci that contained accusations against important figures in the Workers' Party (PT), including Lula. The annulment of the proceedings against Palocci was based on the disclosure of conversations that show the collusion between the judge in the case, Sergio Moro, and the prosecutors responsible for formulating these accusations.

• Extreme heat. Several regions of Brazil experienced an extreme heat wave this week, followed in some cases by devastating storms. The extreme weather is the result of climate change caused by human action. In Rio de Janeiro, temperatures were between 40° and 44° for three days in a row, which caused the City Hall to issue an alert about risks to public health. In the city of São Paulo, the maximum was 34° and, on the coast of the state, 40°.

• Inflation. The price of eggs reached its highest level in 22 months in Brazil. The price of white eggs increased by 69% between January and February. The high temperatures recorded at the beginning of the year affected the productivity of the birds, directly impacting the supply and production costs. Corn, used to feed the chickens, also became more expensive. The price of a 60 kg bag has been increasing since September of last year.

News from ABO and social organizations and movements:

Strong democracy. The Brazil Office was one of more than 20 organizations that participated in a series of meetings in Brasília this week to discuss with agencies from the three branches of government an agenda of measures aimed at strengthening democracy in Brazil and making it less susceptible to attacks like the one on January 8, 2023. The group is made up of entities that are part of the Pact for Democracy. Sami Sternberg, from the Brazil Office, took to the Supreme Court considerations about the necessary cooperation between the country's highest judicial authority and civil society organizations. In meetings with embassies, the organization highlighted the importance of northern countries making funding commitments as the Trump administration retreats in this sector.

UN in Geneva. The EBO (Europe Brazil Office) will hold a side event on March 5 at the Palace of Nations in Geneva to discuss the implementation of United Nations recommendations for the protection of human rights defenders in Brazil. The event will have simultaneous English-Portuguese translation.

HIV/AIDS. The Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA) announces that it has resumed in-person operations at its headquarters in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The organization, founded in 1987 by sociologist Herbert de Souza, also known as Betinho, works to mobilize civil society to combat the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Brazil. To learn more about ABIA, visit the website by clicking on the link.

Disappeared. On February 25, at 8 p.m., the ICL channel will host a live interview with Vera Paiva and Marcelo Rubens Paiva – children of Eunice and Rubens Paiva – about the Brazilian film We’re Still Here, winner of several awards and nominated for an Oscar. The conversation will cover not only cinema, but also the current Brazilian political panorama and the debate on forced disappearances during the dictatorship and the Amnesty Law. The interview is open to the public, with free registration at the link.

New direction. Brazilian Maíra Martini took over this month as CEO of the NGO Transparency International. In an interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, she highlighted the importance of acting to detect and prevent corruption and not just punish it. Martini also commented on the impact that the budget cuts promoted by Trump are having on organizations in the sector. Read the interview at the link.

Reorganization. The year 2024 saw the institutional milestone in the creation of the Brazil Office/Brazil Office Alliance and the launch of the Europa Brazil Office (Brussels and Geneva) and the Associação Brasil Office (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília), which will now work in an integrated and coordinated manner with the Washington Brazil Office (United States). The formation of an Alliance composed of the three organizations will, starting in 2025, provide a better structure and greater reach for the international work of the 73 civil society organizations and affiliated social movements, so that they can all expand the scope and effectiveness of their actions in Brazil, Europe, and the United States. Find out more at the link.

Feature Article

Why Doesn't the Brazilian Far-right Incorporate Trump's Immigration Policy into Its Platforms?

By João Carlos Jarochinski Silva*

Almost a month after Donald Trump's inauguration for his second term as US president, it is clear that the issue of immigration has been central to his agenda, especially with regard to entry control, the deportation of people in an irregular situation, and the suspension of funding for humanitarian actions and organizations linked to the UN system that work on human mobility. These measures, widely highlighted by the government's communications team, demonstrate Trump's ability to meet the desires of a significant portion of his electoral base, ensuring their loyalty and reinforcing his political agenda.

In the United States, the far-right, represented by the Trump administration, plays a leading role and influences similar political movements in other countries, such as Brazil. In light of this scenario, this article seeks to explore some hypotheses to understand why the Brazilian far-right has not emphasized, in its action platforms, the reproduction of the immigration policies currently adopted in the United States. This exercise allows us to assess the real weight of the immigration issue in Brazil, especially in the week in which the seven-year anniversary of Operation Acolhida (Welcome) is celebrated and the newspaper Folha de São Paulo published, in its Trends/Debates section, the article Immigration is good for Brazil, written by Horacio Lafer Piva, Pedro Passos and Pedro Wongtschowski, all representatives of the Brazilian business community. These two events serve as elements that we will explore in an attempt to answer the question posed in the title. Operation Acolhida – launched in 2018, during the Temer administration – was developed based on the particularities of Roraima, a state characterized by low effectiveness in the provision of public services, a predominance of federal employees linked to the Defense and Security apparatus, and for being the only structural connection point between Brazil and Venezuela through the twin cities of Pacaraima and Santa Elena de Uairén.

The Venezuelan migratory flow began to intensify in 2015 with a constant growth in net inflows between 2015 and 2019. This mobility, driven by the deep political, economic, and social crisis that has marked Venezuela since the death of Hugo Chávez, has transformed Brazil into both a destination and a transit territory for these people. The impact of this movement has generated social tensions in the state's municipalities, especially in Pacaraima and Boa Vista, which have seen a significant increase in their populations and in the demand for essential services, such as health and education. However, the most visible aspect of this phenomenon has been the growing presence of people living on the streets of these cities.

As was common during the Temer administration, the Armed Forces played a central role in formulating the Brazilian response to the challenges generated by this increase in mobility in the region. Military action on migration and humanitarian issues was already part of the Armed Forces' scope of interests, as evidenced by Exercise AmazonLog 17. Acolhida ended up being politically instrumentalized, bringing the Venezuelan crisis to the center of the national debate. The prevailing discourse linked the need to prevent Brazil from following the same path as Venezuela, a rhetoric that, although unfounded in the comparison between the development and institutions of both countries, gave political and operational prominence to the Armed Forces.

In this context, our first hypothesis arises: the fact that the humanitarian response was structured under military leadership and focused on providing priority care to a population originating from a country governed by a left-wing regime allowed Operation Acolhida to continue during the Bolsonaro administration. This prevented segments of the far right from criticizing the initiative, especially considering that the first commander of the operation, General Eduardo Pazuello, later became a member of Congress linked to this political sector. His actions reinforce the defense of Operation Acolhida and its relevance in Brazilian migration policy. Even under the Lula government, the maintenance of Acolhida did not become the target of criticism from the opposition.

Acolhida is also related to the article published in Folha de São Paulo, since one of its pillars is dispersing people, many of whom are directed to other regions of Brazil through job offers. The article, written by representatives of the business sector, highlights the positive aspects of migration in the country, but its emphasis is mainly on the availability of labor and entrepreneurship as central factors in the argument. In this context, the dispersing policy reflects a perception already present in some business segments: the aging process of the Brazilian population and, in a scenario of low unemployment, the increasing difficulty in filling lower-paid job vacancies or in sectors that the local population, especially in areas such as agribusiness and construction, tend to avoid.

The demand from the business sector, especially in areas relevant to Brazil's GDP, prevents the far right from adopting a discourse openly against immigration, based on the defense of national identity or the supposed threat that migrants represent to the country. To justify this lack of criticism without contradicting their ideological platforms, they resort to adaptive rhetoric, such as valuing miscegenation, also present in the Folha de São Paulo article. However, this narrative ignores the recurring episodes of racism and xenophobia that are common in Brazilian society, including those experienced by migrants themselves. It is clear that the interest in the migration agenda is essentially instrumental, adapted to the economic and political context. This is reflected in the lack of significant questions within these sectors regarding the treatment given to Brazilians deported by the United States or the suspension of resources made by the Trump administration, which directly impact the services provided to Venezuelans under Operation Acolhida.

It is essential to move forward in the construction of a national migration policy that, in fact, implements the principles established in the Migration Law and, above all, ensures adequate resources for the development of these actions. The political scenario for 2026 is uncertain, and Congress, despite its differences and contradictions, remains a space where the debate on migration can go beyond the mere electoral use of the agenda, often instrumentalized by exclusionary nationalism.

In this context, it is essential that the executive assume a more active role, setting the agenda for the issue and ensuring the implementation of the decisions taken at the Second National Conference on Migration, Refuge and Statelessness (Comigrar-2024). This would prevent this opportunity from being wasted and ensure that deliberations would continue to be, in many cases, the same ones discussed ten years ago, at the First Comigrar (2014). Furthermore, government inaction at this time could open space for the far right, in a different context and with different interests, to assume the leading role in defining migration policies, representing serious risks to the protection and access to rights of migrants in Brazil.

*João Carlos Jarochinski Silva, who has a PhD in Social Sciences and post-doctorate from the Center for Population Studies (Nepo/Unicamp), is Professor of the International Relations course and the master’s course in Society and Borders at the Federal University of Roraima. His research topics relate to human mobility since 2007.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.