By João Jarochinski Silva*

Venezuelan migrants walk past UNHCR tents at a camp in Boa Vista, Roraima/ Marcelo Camargo/ Wikimedia Commons/ Creative Commons License

The influx of Venezuelan refugees and migrants since 2013 into the Brazilian state of Roraima has challenged the state’s ability to settle them, but a continued or increased flow will require a significant expansion of efforts to relocate and integrate the new arrivals. The flow has not been unmanageable or caused significant problems in public services, as some local politicians claim, and has actually generated some benefits. In the past six years, over 260,000 Venezuelans have applied for refugee or residency status in Brazil, with the vast majority entering through Roraima, which is north of Manaus and shares borders with both Venezuela and Guyana. A voluntary relocation program, called Interiorização, has moved more than 20,000 to other Brazilian cities, but most remain in municipalities near the border. Roraima state itself has less than 600,000 inhabitants.

• The Venezuelans in Roraima are mostly working age (16-64 years old). National authorities, assisted by UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and others, have developed policies related to education, training, and employment to take advantage of their productive capacity and facilitate their integration in Brazil. These initiatives enhance the emergency benefits the migrants receive and help them become autonomous.

International, national, and local experts, including at the Federal University of Roraima, Getulio Vargas Foundation, and OBMigra, have found that the Venezuelan arrivals’ impact on Roraima has been mixed.

• The state registered positive economic growth and diversification during 2016‑17, the period of most intense Venezuelan flow, when Roraima’s GDP grew 2.3 percent, compared to the 1.4 percent of other Brazilian states. In the two following years, the state registered significant growth in agricultural production, including Brazil nuts and some livestock items, and showed the largest recorded increase in planted area (28.9 percent), while Brazil as a whole saw a decline of 0.6 percent. Roraima surpassed all other regions with an 8 percent increase in its economic diversification index. Expanded retail trade and exports in 2018‑19 fueled a 25 percent increase in tax revenues.
• Unemployment and poverty, on the other hand, also rose during this period. While many of the Venezuelans found jobs in services such as restaurants, retail, and construction, unemployment in the state rose by 6.1 percentage points between 2017 and 2019, while Brazil’s national rate fell 0.6 percentage points. The incidence of extreme poverty in Roraima also grew from 1.64 percent in 2015 to 5.7 percent in 2018, compared to 4.2 percent nationally in 2018. (The new Venezuelan workers, however, have not significantly reduced the wages of Brazilians living in Roraima.)

Local anxieties about new strains on social services have not been fully borne out. The Venezuelans have enrolled children in schools and used medical services, but available data do not show unusually high demand. There has been, in fact, a downward trend in outpatient care provided by Roraima municipalities, and the increase in hospitalizations in the state coincided with that seen nationally.

• The research suggests that the state’s increase in tax revenues is on a par with the additional costs of these and other services provided to the Venezuelans. Both figures are about US$22.5 million.

Roraima’s experience – so far – shows that the influx of refugees and migrants into Brazil has not had a profound impact, but the crisis in Venezuela shows no sign of abating and could get worse. Roraima, the state with the smallest population in Brazil, has a limited ability to absorb new arrivals and settle them locally without significant new resources. Expansion of the successful elements of Roraima’s approach, such as the voluntary Interiorização relocation program, would help. Additional work-related training and professional qualification programs would also help new arrivals contribute economically after relocation. Particularly if flows continue to be strong or increase, Roraima state and its municipalities are likely to feel growing urgency to develop systems to manage them and beef up social protection networks to support relocation – with the same goal of taking advantage of the economic potential of the Venezuelans’ full social and economic integration.

February 3, 2020

* João Jarochinski Silva is a CLALS fellow, professor at the Universidade Federal de Roraima (UFRR), and one of the report’s researchers. The research, funded by the Escola Superior do Ministério Público da União (ESMPU) and the UNHCR, is available here in Portuguese.