Growing Tensions over Spain's Treatment of Brazilians

In early March, tensions between Brazil and Spain flared up over tourism. It began with Spain's sudden refusal to admit 452 Brazilians into the country at Madrid's airport in February. Brazil has a system of reciprocity in terms of visas and tourism; hence, if you live in the U.S., you pay $110 for a tourist visa to Brazil because the U.S. makes Brazilians pay the same to try to obtain a tourist visa to the U.S.* (and if you don't like that, call your local congressman/woman and senator to complain about the U.S.'s policy). Since Spain had begun turning away Brazilian tourists, in early March, Brazil turned away 8 Spaniards for "irregular papers" (which appears to have been the case - Brazil has been trying to crack down on European sex tourism for some time, and part of that crackdown has been an insistence on having your papers in order. (And that's not to say the 8 Spaniards expelled were sex tourists.)

*(Even so, the reciprocity is not complete, because Americans applying for a tourist visa to Brazil are almost guaranteed to get it, and do not have to go through an interview. Brazilians, on the other hand, have to be interviewed at one of the American consulates in Brazil, and if you are refused the visa, you don't even get your $110 back).

Last week, Foreign Policy Blogs had a post up contextualizing the situation a bit more. I think its generally right about Brazil's historical acceptance of immigrants, and Brazilian emigration has been on the rise in the last 40 years or so. I think the one weakness in the post's article, though, is the implicit presumption that the Brazilians who Spain turned away were part of this wave of illegal immigrants. Many of those turned away from Spain in February were middle- and upper-middle class tourists and professionals who were traveling to Spain either for professional duties like international congresses, or to sightsee and escape Brazil during Carnaval (not everybody loves Carnaval, after all).

I understand that Spain may be struggling with illegal immigration, but that in no way excuses Spain's terrible treatment of those who were detained, where Brazilians were "'treated like dogs,' and complained of being held for several days in crowded rooms, receiving insults and bad treatment, or being left for hours without any information about their status, and without food and water or access to their luggage." Compared to this treatment of Brazilians, and the fact that Brazil politely and expediently turned away 8 (and not 452) Spaniards seems more than fair. If Spain really is concerned about illegal immigration, from Brazilians or anybody else, that's within its rights, but there are better and more productive ways to deal with the issue than to just turn away people en masse from the airports, which solves nothing and just leads to diplomatic tensions and travel boycotts from Brazil (I actually knew 2 people who cancelled their trips to Spain to boycott the treatment of Brazilians).

As the post points out, it is essential that both Brazil and Spain work together on this. Spain needs to deal with people more professionally and humanely, be they illegal immigrants or legal tourists. And the possibility of brain-drain as Brazil's talented scientists and businesspeople leave is a threat, though not as great as it was years ago, given how well Brazil's economy is doing and how the government is giving incentive to public university graduates to stay in Brazil.
Still, it's good that both sides sat down last week to start discussing this, and hopefully things will improve, particularly for those Brazilians traveling to Spain legally.