Bairo GonzalezLeandro · Martinez
Start your guided journey The story

In the world · Migration · 30 April 2026

Venezuelans in Brazil: refuge and Operation Welcome

About 680,000 Venezuelans live in Brazil, and Operation Welcome has moved over 150,000 to 1,100 cities. What worked and what is still missing.

bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published

Venezuelans today form the largest immigrant community in Brazil. OBMigra's 12th Annual Report, presented on April 30, 2026, estimates about 680,000 Venezuelans living in the country at the start of 2026, with more than 201,000 in formal employment in 2025. Many of them arrived through the Roraima border and were received by Operação Acolhida (Operation Welcome), the federal humanitarian response created in 2018, which has already moved more than 150,000 people from Roraima to other cities in the country.

What happened

Operation Welcome began in April 2018, when the arrival of Venezuelans in Pacaraima and Boa Vista exceeded Roraima's capacity. It is coordinated by a federal committee with several ministries, carried out in the field by the Armed Forces and supported by UN agencies, such as UNHCR and IOM, and by civil society organizations. It works on three fronts: border management, shelter and interiorization (relocation to the interior of the country).

Interiorization is the best-known part. Venezuelans who accept are taken to other cities by four routes: transfer from shelter to shelter, family reunification, reunion with friends and acquaintances, or a job opening offered by a company. The milestones show the pace:

  • 100,000 relocated by March 2023, to more than 930 municipalities, according to IOM;
  • 150,000 by June 2025, according to the federal government;
  • more than 157,000, to more than 1,100 municipalities, by January 2026, according to UNHCR.

OBMigra's 2025 data show a change of phase. Venezuelans remain the group regularizing most in the country and accounted for 89.8% of the 9,200 refugee recognitions granted in the year. But applications fell: residence registrations by Venezuelans have been declining since 2023, Cubans moved ahead in new asylum applications, and humanitarian reception visas dropped from 10,000 in 2023 to 1,500 in 2025.

Why it matters

The most original part of Operation Welcome is interiorization. Instead of concentrating tens of thousands of people at a poor border, Brazil distributed them to where there was work. The result shows up in the formal market: in 2025, Venezuelans led among immigrants in formal employment, and the Southern states concentrated two thirds of the jobs created for immigrants.

The challenge now is what comes after. The Venezuelan community includes many women and children, and OBMigra calls for specific policies for these groups. In the cities that receive them, service in Spanish and access to credit for those who want to start a business are lacking. Venezuelans are already the largest origin of foreign MEIs (individual microentrepreneurs) in the country, with 25% of the total, according to Sebrae.

In Bairo's view

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez is Colombian, a border neighbor of Venezuela, and has lived in Brazil since 2002. His story is not one of refuge and should not be confused with that of those who fled a humanitarian crisis. But, in his reading, there is one thing that unites every immigrant who arrives: the moment the person understands they will have to start from zero, in a language that is not yet theirs.

For Bairo, interiorization showed something that holds for any fresh start: those who get a chance close to work get back on their feet faster. He often says the sun is for everyone, but shade, in the heat, is for few. In his reading, Operation Welcome was a way for the country to offer a little of that shade to those who arrived with nothing.

The beginning of his story is in Capoeira was the bridge, and his fresh start in The sun is for everyone.

Where this meets the ecosystem

Instituto CEASA, a humanitarian project founded by Bairo, proposes turning the surplus from the wholesale food markets into food that lasts up to two years outside the refrigerator. The proposal is to broaden access to food, and shelters and reception centers are exactly the kind of place where such food would make a difference. It is a project being implemented.

CLAIN proposes niche AI agents in Spanish to provide guidance on documents, work and public services, always referring people to official channels and with a person responsible for the decision.

Sources

Read also

More on this topic

In the world: Migration