Farmer Pedro Alexandrino Filho, 34, dreamed of improving his life in the United States since he was a child. When he felt ready, he resorted to irregular migration with the promise that he would arrive well. Did not arrive.
Pedro drowned on the way from Mexico to the US in September 2020. Before migrating, like thousands of Brazilians who risk their lives on the border, the miner was hopeful.
“I have to pass, I’ll make it through and fulfill this dream of going to the United States. Then I’ll help someone in the family who wants to go, but I don’t intend to stay there for long,” Pedro said in an audio message to his sister Angelita Gonçalves, 38, from Tarumirim, east of Minas Gerais.
In this region of the state, where Governador Valadares is located, most people leave life in Brazil behind in search of opportunities in the US. As a result, cities lose population and labor.
The constant and growing stream of matches also leaves marks. Angelita, who is a clerk, did not say goodbye to her brother. Today, she keeps at home ashes of the body that was cremated abroad.
“I wanted his body, but they said it was found in an advanced stage of decomposition. I want justice because I know my brother suffered, he was even detained and nobody did anything,” she said.
Peter was not the only one to lose his life. Since 2020, eight Brazilians have died, and two are missing, while trying to make the crossing. There are even reports of kidnappings, rapes, extortion and desertion.
The information comes from the Federal Police and Itamaraty, which are turning their attention to the problem due to the rise in irregular migration and the risks of the project, such as vulnerability to Mexican cartels and gangs. The coyotes, responsible for the crossing, are usually heavily armed.
João Francisco Campos da Silva Pereira, head of the Itamaraty’s Consular Assistance Division, said that weekly Brazilians contact the ministry to report the disappearance of relatives or friends.
There are cases where they discover that the missing person is detained. However, there are episodes where American and Mexican authorities have no information.
“What we see is that many people go completely unaware, not knowing what they are getting into. They are more vulnerable people, with a lower level of education, with less financial resources”, said Pereira.
After a reduced influx of migrants in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of Brazilians who tried to enter the US illegally has exploded this year.
Data from the Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP, its acronym in English) indicate that there were more than 58,000 apprehensions in 2021. The growth was 534% compared to 2020, when there were 9,147.
Brazil ranks sixth with the most migrants detained in 2021. It is second only to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador — the top four geographically close to the US.
The increase in migration reflects, among other factors, the worsening economic crisis. Duval Fernandes, a professor at PUC-Minas who studies the topic, cited the situation of hopelessness and the lack of opportunities, especially in the east of Minas Gerais, as drivers of the new wave of matches.
“Migrating ends up becoming the only way for a person to fulfill their dream,” said Fernandes.
This phenomenon is felt by those providing assistance in the US. Liliane Costa, executive director of Brace (Brazilian American Center), said that many are shocked when they arrive in the country.
“They didn’t know what they were going to face, they are convinced in Brazil that here is the eighth wonder. They come very deluded, thinking they’ll earn US$ 1,000 a week, but they don’t know how much it costs to rent a house. shelter, there are people living in a hotel, in a car,” he said.
Brace is a non-profit organization that welcomes migrants. It is usually at the entity that Brazilians ask for information when they arrive in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Brazil’s consul general in Boston, Benedicto Fonseca Filho, reported in a telegram earlier this month that he has observed the significant arrival of Brazilians across the US southern border.
“The intense and continuous flow of new Brazilian immigrants across the state has produced situations that, in some cases, allow us to assess that a dangerous ‘saturation point’ has been reached, with the exhaustion of the possibility of welcoming new students in public schools , pressure on health services, and exhaustion of job offers,” reported Fonseca Filho in a document obtained via LAI (Access to Information Law).
While American cities are full of Brazilians, cities in eastern Minas Gerais lose population, labor, income and close schools. Governador Valadares, Tarumirim, Alpercata and Itanhomi face difficulties in finding a maid, bricklayer, mechanic.
The mayor of Tarumirim, MarcÃlio Bonfim, said that, due to migration, 1,800 families left in 2021 alone. With the disbanding of even children, three schools were closed.
“People leaving ends up causing the municipality to lose income from the participation fund, for example. However, civil construction is heated up because of many people who go and send money to the family,” said Bonfim.
About 60% of the works are financed by those who migrated, according to LaÃs de Paula Silva, secretary for the Environment and Sustainable Development of Tarumirim. She said that she has already lost around 40 employees to the migration, including public exams.
“Every family has someone who went to the United States. My mother and father went in 1996 and returned in 2000,” said Silva.
Rafael França, mayor of Alpercata, stated that migration since 2020 has made the city see its population reduced by 5%, which corresponds to around 350 people.
He said that manpower is so scarce that there is a bricklayer who will only take over the work in 2023. However, France admitted that there is a lack of jobs in the region. With low salaries, many want to leave.
In the region​, Governador Valadares has become one of the main migration hubs and historically concentrates the largest number of Brazilians trying to enter the US. No wonder the city even has the Praça do Emigrante.
There are exchange offices and tourist agencies throughout the city. The dollar circulates through the region, so much so that residents say the city is known as Valadolares.
Surrounding cities absorb this influence. The plasterer Rafael Sérgio, 23, resident of the rural area of ​​Tarumirim, tried the crossing. “In Brazil there is a lot of poverty, food is expensive, gasoline is expensive. I would like to have a better future,” he said.
He spent five months in prison awaiting deportation in Texas. He returned to Brazil in September this year. According to Sérgio, those days were difficult, sleeping on the floor and handcuffed by feet, hands and stomach.
The young man arrived in Brazil on a US charter flight with deportees. Brazilian authorities authorized two weekly departures, but asked the Americans to stop imposing handcuffs during the flight, not to send patients and not to separate families.
Anyone trying to enter the Mexican border turns to smugglers. In the region of Governador Valadares, there are providers of this illegal service that charge up to US$ 25,000 and offer document forgery and children’s rental.
Promoting illegal migration became a crime in 2017. Since then, the PF has focused on the practice that has already become the third most profitable in Brazil — second only to arms and drug trafficking. In 2021 alone, the crime generated R$ 8 billion.
“The emigrant does not commit a crime in Brazil. The criminal is the one who promotes and exploits these people as merchandise. It is as if they were exporting a slave who arrives there with a huge debt to pay the smuggler”, said Daniel Ottoni, PF delegate in Governor Valadares.
Despite the fact that most of the deportees are from Minas, Brazilian authorities have already lit the alert with other states. After Minas Gerais, Rondônia and EspÃrito Santo lead the list.
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