REFLECTIONS ON THE LEGAL PROTECTION OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS IN BRAZIL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Danilo Fontenele Sampaio Cunha, Matheus Atalanio

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the legal protection of internationalmigrants in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. Migration is aconstant in human life and shall not be considered a recentphenomenon, but one that develops itself every year. Brazil hasits own legislation that is in line with the Brazilian FederalConstitution and that guarantees the protection of migrants. Itturns out that Decree no. 9199/2017, which regulates theBrazilian Migration Act, gives rise to controversial interpretationsof the proposed principles and directives, giving rise to difficultiesin achieving fully migrants’ rights. The following study wasstructured in three parts, the first topic explains an analysis of thenormative evolution of the legal protection of internationalmigrants in Brazil. In the second stage, UNs directives aboutmigration are analyzed, especially those published by UNMigration, and how they seek to establish migrants’ protection.The last topic details the mechanisms that the new Brazilianmigration policy uses to guarantee the rights of internationalmigrants in the face of COVID-19. As a result, it demonstratesthe need for the study given the relevant impacts on the reality ofBrazilians and foreigners residing in the country, as it isunderstood that the country guarantees the rights of displacedpersons but has difficulties in enforcing them. In this work, it wasapplied a deductive method, through a bibliographic analysis ofperiodicals and official documents published by internationalorganizations.