Brazil Tightens Entry Rules Over ‘Stopover’ Migrants
Brazil is tightening entry requirements from Monday after a surge in migrants disembarking during stopovers at Sao Paulo’s main airport in a bid to seek asylum in the country.
Their goal is to enter Brazil and make their way overland to the United States.
“Brazil has become a route for criminal organizations that smuggle immigrants and traffic people. Authorities have identified an exponential increase in the number of nationals mainly from Asian countries,” Brazil’s justice ministry said in a statement to AFP.
The travelers buy plane tickets with final destinations in other South American countries, and are advised by people smugglers to apply for asylum in Brazil.
However, the statement said, these travelers are actually seeking to head north through Colombia and then Panama via the perilous Darien Gap jungle in the hope of a better life in the United States.
Most arrive at Brazil’s biggest aviation hub, Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport, where hundreds of migrants can spend weeks waiting in a crowded transit zone.
Last week authorities estimated 481 people were currently stuck in limbo in the airport. Local media report that many are from India, Nepal and Vietnam.
A local television station showed images last week of dozens of people wearing masks in a long line waiting for food.
On August 13, a Ghanaian man died five days after his arrival, after falling ill and being transferred to a public hospital, where he suffered a heart attack, the Federal Police told AFP.
