Jameson Blanc, 29, met his son Raynju Riguelme for just a few days. Shortly after giving birth, in 2019, the Haitian migrated to Brazil, where he hoped to raise money to bring his wife and child. In September 2021, the immigrant, who works in Joinville (SC), asked for a loan and began to try the family reunification process. There was no time: Raynju became ill and eventually died, aged two, in early 2022.
“He had a very strong fever, like an infection. He spent months in hospital, but died,” says Jameson, who never knew the cause of his son’s death. Now, Blanc is trying to bring his wife to Brazil, but he still hasn’t managed to overcome the bureaucracy. “She was pretty shaken up by everything that happened.”
Born in a country devastated by natural disasters and poverty, Haitians are entitled to a humanitarian reception visa in Brazil, which was renewed two months ago. They can also bring their relatives, who need to obtain a family reunion visa.
With the worsening political, economic and social instability in Haiti — for reasons such as the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, a powerful earthquake in 2021 and the strengthening of criminal gangs — immigrants living in Brazil rushed to try to bring their children and spouses.
But the difficulty in obtaining a visa is such that many have been waiting for a year and a half or more. The lack of flights between the two countries is another obstacle that prevents the trip, even for those who have their documentation up to date.
The imbroglio reached Justice, with thousands of lawsuits requesting urgent family reunion without the need to go through the usual bureaucracy. Some charter flights have already brought in passengers who have obtained injunctions, most of them children who came to join their parents.
In the lawsuits, the lawyers allege that the visa, granted at the Brazilian embassy in Port-au-Prince, is practically impossible to obtain, due to the difficulty of scheduling – the demand, which already exceeded by thousands of times the offer of vacancies, became even greater with the suspension of new orders for 15 months due to the pandemic.
There are also allegations of bribery to access diplomatic representation, something that was investigated by the Brazilian government in previous years.
Lawyers argue that family reunification is guaranteed by the Migration Law and international treaties signed by Brazil. “It is a right enshrined by law. Brazil treats everything as seen, but it should be a separate process”, defends the lawyer Débora Pinter, who represents hundreds of families. “They try to book online, but the system crashes.”
Pinter and other lawyers had been getting favorable sentences. In April, however, the president of the Superior Court of Justice, Humberto Martins, understood that Haitians are not entitled to bring family members outside the traditional bureaucratic procedure, on the grounds of “risk of compromising national migration policy”. At the time, the Brazilian Bar Association of Santa Catarina released a note criticizing the decision, which it considers unconstitutional.
The effect of that ruling on lower courts has drastically dropped the approval of claims —Aline Jamile Nossabein, another attorney, estimates the drop to have been 70%. She has already managed to bring more than 100 Haitians to a family reunion via court process, but she has hundreds who are waiting.
Nossabein showed the Sheet photos, videos and reports it receives from its customers. Stories include family members who died while waiting, massacres in the neighborhood of their homes and children living in shabby tents. “I’ve lost a lot of clients this year. People who kill themselves, die from stray bullets, infection.”
For her, the system is inefficient. “The vacancies disappear in less than a minute. We have clients who have been trying for two years. There is no other possibility that is not through the courts”, she says. “And they are people with a formal contract, who prove that they will support their families here. They should be a priority.”
According to Itamaraty, the embassy in Port-au-Prince is the Brazilian diplomatic post that most issues visas in the world. There were almost 12 thousand in 2020 and 2021, “despite the difficulties arising from the Covid-19 pandemic”, says the folder.
The ministry cites an agreement made in 2015 with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The entity was responsible for the pre-processing of visas in the Haitian capital, through a website controlled from its headquarters, in Switzerland, to prevent fraud.
In a note, Itamaraty also states that it has acted to speed up the processing of requests, “without neglecting the procedures to ensure compliance with Brazilian immigration regulations and document security.”
Another journey for immigrants is getting a plane to bring their family. There are no commercial flights between the two countries, and no company has agreed to organize charters — due to local insecurity and previous cases of passengers traveling with falsified documents. One possibility is to come via the Dominican Republic, but the neighboring country has also made it difficult to grant visas to Haitians.
“Today there is almost zero possibility of being able to fly from Haiti to here. And in the Dominican Republic there is also a lot of corruption in the visa process”, says Haitian Olith Benjamin, 40. A businessman in Florianópolis, he says that there are mafias exploiting Haitians in all stages of migration, including community associations in Brazil that charge abusive prices for tickets on charter flights.
Meanwhile, families of Haitian immigrants suffer a routine of deprivation and violence. A resident of Caxias do Sul (RS), Abner Pierre, 42, has been trying for months to bring his three children closer to him and his wife. The oldest, Rosedarling, was 19 when she was killed in a robbery a few weeks ago.
“She went out to get a phone and was approached by two bandits”, says Pierre. The two other children, aged 9 and 12, were with their grandmother, but she is sick and can no longer care for them. “I’m suffering too much. I’ve been trying to get a visa for the children for a long time, but I never get it. I’m afraid something will happen to them. Haiti is hell.”
One of the interviewees, Meloune Duclair, 37, cried when talking to the reporter. The Haitian works in a meatpacking plant in Braço do Norte (SC) and tries to bring her 5 and 15-year-old daughters. They were cared for by an aunt, who is hospitalized after having an accident. “The girls are at home without an adult, starving. I send money [por intermediários], but often do not deliver to them. I don’t know what to do, I’m going crazy with worry.”
