With hundreds stranded in Sao Paulo, India to broach topic with Brazil Minister Foreign Minister

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. File
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

The plight of hundreds of men and women, many of them Indian, who are stranded at an airport in Sao Paulo as they are suspected to be illegal immigrants, maybe discussed during meetings with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who landed in Delhi on Sunday (August 25, 2024). Mr. Vieira is in New Delhi to hold the 9th India-Brazil Joint Commission meeting with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and they will also discuss the agenda for the upcoming G-20 summit in Rio De Janeiro on November 18 and 19, 2024, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement announcing the visit.

“With Brazil holding the G-20 Presidency this year, the Ministers will also discuss how the two countries as [part of the] Troika can take forth key G-20 outcomes from the Indian Presidency last year,” the Ministry said, adding that the two sides would discuss ways to further strengthen the India-Brazil strategic partnership signed in 2006. Mr. Vieira is meeting with business leaders on ways to grow bilateral trade, that has ranged between $10-$15 billion in the past few years.

The Joint Commission will meet on Tuesday, where cooperation in Defence, Agriculture and Energy would be on the agenda. Brazil exports crude oil and cooperates with India on biofuels. 

Mr. Vieira will also discuss aligning efforts for the G-20 summit documents being prepared. Although India is a key member of the “Troika” of Brazil, India and South Africa (hosts of 2023, 2024 and 2025 respectively), Mr. Jaishankar was unable to attend the crucial G-20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting due to the annual Raisina Dialogue conference in February and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman could not attend the Finance Ministers’ Meeting due to the presentation of the Budget in Parliament in July. Officials said the Foreign Minister’s visit would be an opportune time to prioritise G-20 issues, particularly for the developing world. India and Brazil are also both members of the BRICS, IBSA and BASIC groupings as well as part of the G-4 initiative for UN reform and the Ministers are likely to speak about the upcoming UN “Summit of the Future” on September 22-23, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil President Lula da Silva are expected to attend. 

While Brazil’s new regulations to crackdown on illegal immigration routes, and the issue of more than 660 people, including more than 100 Indians being held in Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport for several weeks, are not on the formal agenda, officials expect that they will be raised. “We have seen reports of people stranded who ask to be admitted [to Brazil] as refugees,” said sources while adding that no information has been shared with New Delhi so far due to privacy reasons, and to protect those requesting asylum.

On August 22, Brazil’s Justice Ministry also announced it would impose new restrictions on travellers from “certain Asian countries” who transit through its airports beginning August 26 (Monday), and will not allow them to stay on in Brazil. The measure is expected to target Indians, Chinese, Nepalis and Vietnamese citizens in particular, who are believed to be part of a growing trend of illegal immigrants landing and requesting asylum, and then taking the land route from Brazil to the Mexican border with the United States in order to cross over to the U.S. and Canada. According the U.S. Justice department, the number of such “asylum applications” have increased 61 times between 2013 and 2023, growing from 69 to 4,239, and they were joining hands with other countries in North and South America to restrict the illegal immigration route. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Border Control Services recorded that the number of Indians crossing over from the U.S.’s southern borders had grown to around 1,00,000, five times more than 2019-2020 figures, as Indians have now become the third-largest community of illegal immigrants in the U.S.