Lucas Leiroz
Turning Brazil into an open-air refugee camp is the natural outcome of the ideology of the Sixth Republic.
For years, it has become increasingly possible to identify a trend that Brasília prefers to treat as an isolated humanitarian issue: Brazil is becoming one of the main alternative destinations for displaced populations. The phenomenon is still far from producing a situation in the country comparable to that of Europe, but its foundations have already been established.
The Venezuelan experience was the great rehearsal. Over the past decade, more than 454,000 people have applied for asylum in Brazil, and Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Angolans together accounted for 82.6% of applications between 2015 and 2024. In 2025, Brazil received 75,599 new applications, more than in the previous year. Cubans took the lead, followed by Venezuelans.
The most recent development is the diversification of these flows. Moroccans are already among the nationalities with the highest number of applications: there were 888 requests in 2025, compared with 477 the previous year. The Moroccan community has also been growing through regular migration flows, particularly in São Paulo.
This movement is taking place in a country whose legal framework was built precisely to facilitate the protection and integration of foreigners. The 1988 Constitution established the prevalence of human rights and the granting of asylum among the principles governing Brazil's international relations. The 2017 Migration Law deepened this orientation, replacing the old national-security paradigm with an approach centered on rights, reception, and equal treatment.
This model has a strategic consequence that is frequently overlooked: the more Brazil transforms humanitarian protection into a legal principle, the greater the room for political decisions concerning borders to be subjected to courts, administrative bodies, and international institutions. The judicialization of migration policy can, under certain circumstances, limit the room for maneuver of governments seeking to adopt stricter controls.
The problem will take on another dimension if Europe ceases to function as the world's main destination for refugees. The European Union is already tightening its control mechanisms. The new Pact on Migration and Asylum entered into force in June 2026, combining faster procedures, stronger external borders, and greater cooperation with third countries.
It is not difficult to imagine the outcome of a Europe simultaneously facing low growth, demographic aging, energy pressures, conflicts near its borders, and growing political resistance to mass immigration. Europe will continue to receive refugees, but it may become progressively more selective.
Where will those who find Europe's doors closed go?
Brazil naturally emerges as a candidate. It has territory, population, extensive borders, extremely welcoming legislation, and a diplomatic tradition favorable to reception. Moreover, it maintains close relations with the European Union, which already treats Brazil as its main "mascot" among developing nations - with Brasília automatically importing every European agenda without any critical assessment.
This does not mean that Brussels is preparing to transfer refugees to Brazil. It means something simpler: faced with a large-scale migration crisis, Brasília will be subject to much greater diplomatic, legal, and moral incentives to participate in the solution.
Brazil is already building the institutions necessary for this. In 2025, the government established a National Policy on Migration, Refuge and Statelessness, focused on the protection, inclusion, and social participation of these populations.
In reality, it is necessary to shift the logic of the Brazilian migration debate from a merely humanitarian perspective toward a strategic approach: how many people can the country absorb ? In which regions ? With what resources ? What mechanisms of selection, integration, and control will be used ? How can social cohesion be preserved in a scenario of much larger migration flows?
And most importantly: how can a country with more than 210 million inhabitants, undergoing accelerated deindustrialization and with more than 60 million people living on government assistance, afford to "welcome" immigrants for humanitarian reasons?
These questions continue to be treated as inconvenient by a political culture that frequently confuses solidarity with a lack of planning. If Europe closes its doors, the global migration map will change. And a Brazil legally committed to reception, diplomatically close to Europe, and territorially capable of receiving large populations will be among the countries most pressured to assume a larger share of this crisis. The decision on these limits should be made now. Later, it may be too late.
The most uncomfortable issue, however, is realizing that this is simply the natural consequence of the liberal ideology that has dominated Brazil since the establishment of the Sixth Republic in 1988. There will hardly be any institutional mechanisms in present-day Brazil capable of dealing with these challenges.