Progressive legislation but lukewarm policies: The Brazilian response to Venezuelan displacement.

Fleeing from the country's humanitarian crisis, around 224,000 Venezuelans, half of whom requested protection as refugees, had crossed the border into Brazil as of December 2019. The paper uses a case study approach combining quantitative and documentary evidence to systematically examine the Brazilian political‐institutional response to this mass displacement. Although Brazil has been internationally praised as a model, its policy response has been far more complex and ambiguous, lacking the clear progressive character ascribed to it. Despite having a 'progressive' migration and refugee legal framework, the state's framing of this displacement as a temporary 'migration crisis' has led to the militarization of migration management and the adoption of ad hoc regularization mechanisms for the temporary settlement of Venezuelans, with little articulation with other long‐term intersectorial socio‐economic policies. This case illustrates how countries in the global south manage the tensions between securitization and human rights concerns in their migration governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]