Brazil is at the top of the British list of foreigners returning to their countries of origin in 2024. Until September this year alone, around 2,500 Brazilians received assistance to leave the United Kingdom.
For two and a half years, manicurist Fernanda (not her real name) lived in London with her husband and 7-year-old daughter.
The three moved to the United Kingdom at the invitation of other relatives, but the lack of financial stability and constant disagreements turned their dream of a better life abroad into a dream. nightmare.
At the beginning of the year, the family discovered that they could return to Brazil through the voluntary return service of the Home Office, the UK department responsible for immigration.
Through this means, Brazilians in an irregular situation receive, in addition to the air ticket, financial support of up to 3 thousand pounds (around 3600 euros), to return to Brazil.
In 2024, around 2,500 Brazilians did the same as Fernanda: they requested this assistance and returned to Brazil. It’s as if, every day, around 11 Brazilians leave the United Kingdom in this way.
Brazilians are among the three nationalities that most voluntarily returned from the United Kingdom in 2024, behind only Indians and ahead of Albanians. There were 2,900 voluntary returns between January and September 2024, with the majority, around 86%, carried out in an assisted manner.
Others financed their return on their own. This number is significantly higher than that recorded in the same period in 2023, when 1.7 thousand Brazilians left the United Kingdom voluntarily, a 73% increase in one year.
Flights only for Brazilians
In early December, the newspaper The Observer published a report that indicated that around 600 Brazilians had been sent back to Brazil on three secret flights. The newspaper even used the word “deportations” to describe the cases.
The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the flights were secret and that they were deportation cases. According to Itamaraty, the Brazilians would have returned through the voluntary return program.
On the other hand, sources from the agency confirmed to DW that it was the United Kingdom itself that proposed organizing the flights and that this was the first year in which this measure was implemented.
Furthermore, Itamaraty sources revealed that, in fact, four flights were carried out in 2024 and not three, as had been reported by the Observer. The agency declined to confirm the number of Brazilians sent back.
In August, the television channel Band also reported a flight with 200 Brazilians returning from the United Kingdom.
In practice, It is not known how many Brazilians from these four flights returned voluntarily or because they were forced to. A Brazilian interviewed by DW, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that a friend was deported in the second half of this year.
“He was approached at Liverpool Street station in London. He said they were stopping people randomly. The agents chose and checked the documents. He also said that they were disguised and consulting people’s data using a tablet”, he reports.
The friend, who had lived in the United Kingdom since 2022, was detained for ten days before returning, in this case without financial support.
Following the pandemic, both voluntary and forced returns have increased in the UK.
This year, around 29 thousand people were returned to their countries of origin by the first week of December, 25% more than in 2023 and the highest number since 2017, according to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory.
According to Home Office data, which includes information up to September 2024, the number of Brazilians detained for immigration reasons increased by 8% between 2023 and 2024. Brazil was the third nationality with the most detainees, just behind Albania and Romania .
In total, 1100 Brazilians were detained in the United Kingdom for immigration reasons in 2024, and 114 were detained in September. Of these, 413 were deported.
Impact of British migration policies
In March this year, the United Kingdom implemented new immigration rules. Among them, the increase in the gross minimum wage required to obtain a work visa and bring dependents, which rose from £26,200 per year to £38,700.
Furthermore, students who do not attend postgraduate research programs were prohibited from bringing dependents. The objective of these measures is to reduce immigration.
“Both visa grants and net migration decreased in 2024, indicating a significant impact of restrictions,” said Mihnea Cuibus, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Immigration Observatory.
Both the Conservative and Labor governments, explains Cuibus, argue that the returns of illegal foreigners should increase.
The objective is expand illegal arrests by at least 15%. “However, it is unclear how much of the recent increase in returns is due to new measures or the continuation of previous trends,” ponders Cuibus.
It is easier to “return” Brazilians
The voluntary return service (VRS) is a program aimed at those who entered England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland illegally or overstayed their visa.
Those who have requested asylum or the right to remain in the United Kingdom, as well as victims of modern slavery, can also request to return. According to Cuibus, this type of measure is advantageous for the British government as it is cheaper and more humane.
A 2015 estimate put the cost of voluntary return to the British government at around £7,000, while a forced removal could reach £15,000. “And these values have probably increased considerably in the last decade”, he highlights.
O United Kingdom has return agreements with 24 countries. Brazil is not on this listbut there are factors that explain why the country is at the top of the list of citizens removed from the United Kingdom.
One of them is the number of residents: around 230 thousand Brazilians live in the United Kingdom, the second largest Brazilian population in Europe. Another factor is the political and socioeconomic situation.
“It is much easier to return someone to relatively peaceful countries, like Brazil or India, than to places like Iraq or the Democratic Republic of Congo,” says Cuibus.
Furthermore, Brazilians are eligible to receive financial assistance because Brazil is considered a developing country, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Currently, the process involves filling out a form on the government website and waiting for authorities to respond.
Volunteers — but not so much
Another factor that contributes to the return of Brazilians, voluntarily or involuntarily, are the challenges of staying in the UK. With Brexit, since January 2021, Brazilians with dual European nationality have lost the right to live, work or study in the United Kingdom without a visa.
As a result, many Brazilians with Portuguese, Italian or Spanish citizenship, or dependents thereof, became illegal.
“The United Kingdom does not grant amnesties nor does it have public policies to regularize a person. What exists are immigration pathways, through marriage, study, work and family”, explains Edmar da Rocha, a lawyer specializing in immigration and sociologist.
The Brazilian community faces two big challenges: comply with immigration criteria and bear the financial costs.
The cost of applying for a first visa, lasting two and a half years, can reach 3,800 pounds (4,500 euros). “Only the health tax, which was £735, increased to £1,035,” adds Rocha. Permanent residence requires a minimum of three applications, which cost the same amount as the first.
Therefore, the term “voluntary” to describe returns is considered controversial. “I met a woman who got pregnant by a Brazilian. He did not provide assistance and she was left alone with the child, unable to work. I didn’t want to go back, but it was despair“, exemplifies Fernanda.
