Bolsonaro starts the day threatening migrants.
A day after the government officially notified the UN of the country's withdrawal from the Global Compact for Migration, Jair Bolsonaro began the day by threatening migrants in a tweet at 5:57 am; titled "No to the Migration Pact," the president says that "not just anyone enters our house, nor will just anyone enter Brazil via a pact adopted by third parties"; the tweet ignores the fact that Brazil had adhered to the pact in December, as did two-thirds of the 193 countries that are part of the United Nations system; Bolsonaro gives the false impression that Brazil is becoming a mass destination for migrants from all over the world, which is not true.
247 - A day after the government officially notified the UN of the country's withdrawal from the Global Compact for Migration, Jair Bolsonaro began the day by threatening migrants in a tweet at 5:57 am. Titled "No to the Migration Pact," the tweet states that "not just anyone enters our house, nor will just anyone enter Brazil via a pact adopted by third parties." The tweet ignores the fact that Brazil had joined the pact in December, as did two-thirds of the 193 member countries of the United Nations system.
With this break, the Bolsonaro government aligns itself with other far-right governments that are hostile to migrants: the US, Italy, Australia, and Israel. Bolsonaro's tweet gives the false impression that Brazil is a destination sought en masse by migrants from all over the world, which is not true. Since the beginning of his government, Bolsonaro has chosen the weakest in society as targets of his attacks: indigenous people, quilombola communities, poor workers, LGBT people, and now, migrants.
In the tweet, Bolsonaro completely rejects the idea of diversity—a word forbidden in Bolsonarism—stating that the few migrants who enter the country from now on must conform to the status quo of the far-right government: "Whoever comes here must be subject to our laws, rules, and customs, as well as sing our anthem and respect our culture."
Migration Pact: pic.twitter.com/PPI5j6S698
- Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) January 9, 2019
Yesterday, Tuesday (8), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Ernesto Araújo, asked Brazilian diplomats to inform the United Nations (UN) that Brazil has withdrawn from the Global Compact for Migration, which the country had joined in December.
The ministry requested in a telegram that Brazil's missions to the UN and Geneva "inform, by note, respectively to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Director-General of the International Organization for Migration, as well as any other interlocutors considered relevant, that Brazil is dissociating itself from the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration" (hereAccording to the document, Brazil should not "participate in any activity related to the pact or its implementation."
Negotiated since 2017, the pact established guidelines for the reception of immigrants. Among the points defined are the notion that countries should give a coordinated response to migratory flows, that the guarantee of human rights should not be tied to nationalities, and that restrictions on immigration should be adopted as a last resort.
Even former Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes Ferreira, who became a right-wing radical and represented Brazil in the negotiations, had already criticized the idea of abandoning the pact.
"The (migration) issue is indeed a global issue. All regions of the world are affected by migratory flows, sometimes as a sending point, sometimes as a transit point, sometimes as a destination. Hence the need for global responses," he wrote in a tweet.
Aloysio further stated that the pact does not "authorize indiscriminate migration" and "seeks only to serve as a reference for the regulation of migratory flows, without the slightest interference with each country's sovereign definition of its migration policy."