Justice decision paves the way for Haitians to come to Brazil without a visa

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In a unanimous decision, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) authorized lower court judges to grant injunctions for Haitians to enter Brazil without the need for a visa.

The measure is valid for cases of family reunion – in which part of the family, already in the country, tries to bring relatives. The main cases involve minors whose parents came to Brazil in search of better living conditions and are now trying to transfer their children.

The spiral of political, economic and social crises that the Central American country is experiencing, origin of one of the main migratory flows towards Brazil, has caused a multiplication of requests for citizens to enter the country without the need for a humanitarian visa.

The main argument, presented to Justice through individual and collective actions in the last year, is that the Haitian system for granting visas has collapsed and is no longer able to meet the size of the demand of those wishing to emigrate. Since April, decisions favorable to visa waiver requests for Haitians were barred by a previous decision by the STJ. But the most recent decision of the court, on the 7th and published on Thursday (15), changes this scenario.

In a note sent to SheetMinister Maria Thereza de Assis Moura, president of the STJ, said that the scope of the decision lies in the fact that it is necessary to focus on the protection of children and adolescents, in addition to the right to family life, since many of the applicants are minors .

The decision, however, was greeted cautiously by migration experts. João Chaves, coordinator of Migrations and Refuge of the Federal Public Defender’s Office (DPU) in São Paulo, says it is an important milestone, but expresses concern with the details of the text.

According to the decision, applications to suspend the need for a visa may be considered if applicants show that all possibilities for obtaining a visa in Port-au-Prince have been exhausted. It also mentions that judges should ask for expertise to be sure that the case is a family reunion.

“Many children have difficulty obtaining documents in Haiti, and it has already been proven that the administrative avenue has been exhausted”, he says. “It is essential that judges have information on the family situation, but they must pay attention not to create abusive demands that make decisions unfeasible.”

THE Sheet Itamaraty informed that around 150 thousand Haitians live in Brazil today. According to the ministry, 6,422 visas were issued by the Port-au-Prince embassy in 2020, 5,368 in 2021 and 3,310 this year.

Even though only a week has passed since the STJ’s decision, the effects are already being observed. In the last week of December and the first half of January, two flights will arrive in Brazil with at least 160 Haitians without a visa, reports Débora Pinter Moreira, a lawyer and master in immigration law.

They had already received authorization to come to the country with the waiver of the document, but the injunctions were suspended by the April decision. Pinter, who has been to Haiti in recent months to accompany the arrival of citizens from the country, describes the situation of many people to obtain a visa as an ordeal and reports that stories of social chaos that reach his office have intensified.

“There are customers who, from Brazil, send money to their families to buy food, but the relatives are unable to withdraw the amount, because the banks are closed, or else, when they withdraw it, they are robbed in the streets”, he continues. “There are cases like that of a 12-year-old child, whose parents came to Brazil, and now she is abandoned in the country after her grandmother died, trying to come here.”

The poorest country in the Americas and subject to violence and natural disasters, Haiti saw the situation deteriorate after a series of events last year. First, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, which placed the nation in a power vacuum. A month later, an earthquake killed over 2,000 people.

The country still lives with gang violence. Data from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights show that more than 1,400 people have been killed and another thousand kidnapped in the country this year alone.

Newly sworn-in High Commissioner Volker Türk described the situation as a multifaceted and protracted crisis. “It’s a country where armed gangs, allegedly supported by economic and political elites, control more than 60% of the capital, and 4.7 million people face acute hunger.”

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