More on Photos & fingerprints in Brazil

[Guest tinman]

RE: Who gets thumb printed?

 

>"A lot" would be going home? Maybe some,

>but very "disproportionately" the violators

>are (understandably) from poor countries.

 

My point is that the ones who would be going home from developing countries would disproportionately be those from wealthy countries who travel to the third world and violate their tourist visas by doing business, and violating other terms of such visas (perhaps also engaging in the seedier aspects of sexual tourism).

[trilingual]

RE: Latest Developments

 

Like most countries, there's always a potential risk of terrorism in Brazil. Unfortunately, Brazil doesn't have the resources to effectively screen everybody who enters its territory. Mounting a system like the one the U.S. is using is expensive (it's not only equipment, it's assembling the kind of data bases that would make such a system useful). In addition, Brazil has thousands upon thousands of miles of porous land borders with all but two of the other countries in South America, most in remote, very thinly populated regions.

 

While there hasn''t been any foreign-based terrorist activity targeting Brazil, there is some information and considerable suspicion about activities in the tri-border region around Foz de Iguaçu, which has a very large population of recent Arab immigrants and what appears to be a network of support groups and cells for Hezbollah. It's believed that the deadly bombings of the Israeli embassy and Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society in Buenos Aires were supported from the Iguassu Falls region, and that the bombers (or at least some of them) spent time hiding out there. The tri-border region for years has been a huge center of trade for contraband goods and laundered money, and the local Arab community there is heavily involved in that trade (although they are not, by any means, the only ones involved). The Brazilian, Argentine and Paraguayan governments are aware of the situation and do monitor it (prodded heavily by the U.S.).

 

Other than the situation in Iguassu, terrorism isn't a big issue in most of Latin America except Colombia, where it's a home-grown problem. Requiring every last person in Latin America to have to go through such exhaustive vetting procedures before being allowed to enter the U.S. is an overkill solution to a problem of limited scope. There are other less invasive procedures that the U.S. could adopt to deal with potential threats. But for whatever reason, we seem to prefer the most heavy-handed approaches, while ignoring the real threat from countries whose citizens don't require visas to enter the U.S.

[jivau3930]

RE: Latest Developments

 

I'll be returning to Rio in a couple of months. Frankly, I don't care if they fingerprint me, take photos, perform a rectal exam (I encourage it). The joy and pleasure of returning to Rio far outweighs any inconvenience caused by customs. It's no big deal! My only regret is that my friend Michel will be waiting for me on the other side!!

[+ Axiom2001]

RE: Latest Developments

 

Should this thread NOT have been written in the first forum? I know it relates to Brasil, but that forum doesn't relate to scorts "South of the US"at all; that was the initial reason for my slightly curt retort at the end of my aforementioned post some three or more above this one!

 

Hey, Jim- give me a shout via email. I wrote to you prior to the new year and thought that you were not responding because you were in the throes of packing--moving--etc.

I have a few ??????'s to ask you!:-)Axiom

[sf traveler]

RE: Latest Developments

 

O Globo, the Rio newspaper, is reporting on its website that another judge has ordered the suspension of fingerprinting etc for those who arrive in Rio--and only Rio, if your port of entry is Sao Paulo, you'll be fingerprinted. The article emphasized that this was in response to the appeal of Rio, which is afraid of losing tourist dollars right before the biggest event of the year there. SF Traveler

[gulliver]

RE: Latest Developments

 

Boy, this is good news. Tomcal and I are both going for long weekends on Jan 22 and I was worried about further shortening and already tightly scheduled time. Thanks for the post.

[Guest Gringo]

RE: Latest Developments

 

I hope its true. From your lips to His ears.:+

[Guest Valleyman]

RE: Latest Developments

 

The New York Times has also reported the court decision ending the fingerprinting procedure in Rio. Here is the story:

 

January 12, 2004

Rio Seeks to Ease Brazilian Fingerprinting of U.S. Citizens

By LARRY ROHTER

 

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 12 — Reacting to a decision by Brazil's left-leaning national government to support the continued fingerprinting and photographing of American citizens arriving in this country, the municipal government here today obtained a judge's injunction that partially halts the practice.

 

The appeals court ruling applies only in Rio de Janeiro, the principal port of entry for the more than 500,000 Americans who visit Brazil annually. For at least the next 30 days, Americans arriving at other Brazilian cities will still be subjected to the security measures, which have resulted in long delays and official complaints by Washington.

 

Brazil began the practice at the beginning of the month in response to a new American program that applies to all foreigners who require visas to enter the United States. A federal judge in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso took offense, describing the American policy as "violating human dignity, xenophobic, and worthy of the worst horrors of the Nazis," and ordered that all Americans arriving in Brazil be subjected to the same treatment.

 

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry has justified the action by citing the principle of reciprocity, which it described as "a basic element of international relations." But the appeals court judge who handed down today's ruling, Catao Alves, rejected that position, noting that the heightened security measures adopted here were not taken for the same reasons that the United States has cited.

 

"If the United States of America has reasons to adopt the measures that have been questioned by the prosecutor's office," the judge wrote, "Brazil, with no plausible motive since the fear of terrorist attacks happily is not part of national life, cannot do the same solely on the basis of reciprocity, because that would cause millions of dollars of damage to the national economy."

 

Over the weekend, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva brushed aside objections that the judiciary was interfering unconstitutionally in the making of foreign policy and decided not to appeal the initial lower court ruling, which in turn set off the Rio government's appeal. A presidential decree published today instead sets up an inter-ministerial working group and gives it 30 days to determine permanent security procedures for arriving foreigners.

 

After initial delays of up to nine hours, the inspection procedures at Brazilian airports and seaports are gradually improving. The Brazilian Federal Police acknowledge that they were caught by surprise when the measure was announced, and police officers are now moving to install electronic machines similar to those used in the United States.

 

The inspection procedures applied to Brazilians arriving in the United States have been a sore spot ever since they were first imposed after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. In January 2002, Brazil's foreign minister at the time, Celso Lafer, was forced to allow his shoes to be examined when he arrived in Miami, an action that was considered petty and disrespectful here and which generated considerable resentful comment.

 

Though government officials have repeatedly said the countermeasures, widely popular here, are not a reprisal against the United States, few analysts take those declarations seriously. "In private, mainly at the Foreign Ministry and the presidential palace, there are people who adore this saga and want to give the judge a kiss on the forehead," the columnist Eliane Cantanhede wrote in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo last week.

 

Mr. da Silva, a former factory worker and labor leader, belongs to the left-leaning Workers' Party, which has often expressed anti-American sentiment during its 24-year history. Since taking office a year ago, however, Mr. da Silva has followed a policy of consistently criticizing American foreign policy while at the same time seeking an accommodation with the Bush Administration.

 

Mr. da Silva and Mr. Bush are scheduled to meet tonight in Monterrey, Mexico, the site of a conference of Western Hemisphere heads of state. Brazilian officials said they expected the fingerprinting dispute to come up in the talks. But they also indicated that they would not back away from their insistence that Americans can be exempted from fingerprinting here only if Brazilians are exempted from the heightened security procedures in the United States.

 

"If we want an integration of the Americas, it is normal that things be facilitated, not made more difficult" for travelers, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said before embarking for the Mexico conference. "We respect and understand the security problems of the U.S.A., but it is necessary to find a solution based on reciprocity that gives dignified treatment to the citizens of all countries."

[Guest njjim]

RE: Latest Developments

 

Still looking for a little further info. I always change planes in Sao Paulo (a 1 hr layover) and then go through customs in Rio. Does anyone know if this latest development means I will have to go through customs & fingerprinting in Sao Paulo (and miss my connection) - or is my port of entry Rio (where I normally go through customs)?

[trilingual]

RE: Latest Developments

 

If you normally go through immigration and customs in Rio, then you probably won't be fingerprinted (in SP you're in "transit" status). If you go through immigration and customs in SP you'll presumably have to be fingerprinted and photographed, as the latest ruling only applies in Rio.

 

Thanks for all the updates guys. This is a fast-moving and changing story, so please keep monitoring the news and reporting on the latest developments!

[sf traveler]

RE: Latest Developments

 

Unfortunately the online edition of Veja, the Brazilian Time, is reporting that the Brazilian federal government has published a new regulation, in a special edition of the official daily, requiring photographing and fingerprinting of American visitors at all of the countries entry points. This effectively overrules the recent court decision allowing people to enter through Rio with no such procedures. Although the delays appear to be getting shorter, this is still going to discourage American tourism to Brazil, both because people will want to avoid the hassle and because nobody really wants to go where they feel they aren't wanted. And as much as I hate to say it, this is going to make Americans feel unwelcome. The Rio tourism authorities are justifiably worried about this and are doing their best to dispel this feeling by warm greetings of arriving Americans. I am sorry to say this whole episode is making me have second thoughts about continuing to spend my vacations in Brazil and, if I'm feeling this way, just imagine how others will react. Only time will tell how significant an effect this will have on the Brazilian tourist industry. SF Traveler

[trilingual]

RE: Latest Developments

 

SF Traveller's info is accurate: it looks like the procedures for visiting Americans are here to stay, at least for the time being. The Rio authorities are still looking for ways to overturn the policy, but the Brazilian judicial system is very slow, so I'm not holding my breath.

 

According to the local press, Lula has raised the issue with Bush at the Summit of the Americas held the past couple of days in Monterrey, Mexico. He's proposing mutual elimination of visa requirements between the two countries. Again, I'm not holding my breath, but perhaps it will happen, especially if Bush is ever voted out of office. Meanwhile, none of us is in a position to object, as far as I'm concerned, about what or how the Brazilian authorities choose to do as far as entry procedures go. They have an absolute right to make the rules for entry into Brazil, and if we want to visit Brazil we have to play by their rules, and not by ours. Their rules, while admittedly retaliatory, aren't remotely as onerous and humiliating as the procedures we put most foreigners through before they can be admitted to the U.S. So lighten up, everyone, and start thinking about all the good things there are to do in Brazil, and stop obsessing over an extra few minutes at the airport on arrival. What's waiting once you leave the airport is more than worth it!

 

And I haven't seen any real evidence of anti-Americanism here among run-of-the-mill folks. Of course, there's a certain satisfaction is seeing the Americans get a bit of their own back (after Brazilians have had to put for years with insulting and degrading treatment to get U.S. visas) but people also seem to realize that there's a certain element of silliness to this whole thing and wish it hadn't happened. People here understand how much tourism contributes to the local economy, and especially Rio's economy, and don't want to see business hurt because of this kind of international spat. But I think it's just a flash in the pan, and in the long run it won't make the slightest bit of difference. In a year or two it'll be over and everyone will forget about it and that will be that!

[Guest Valleyman]

RE: Latest Developments

 

The New York Times has published an article on the latest developments:

 

January 14, 2004

Brazil Seeks to Bypass Fingerprinting

By LARRY ROHTER

 

 

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 13 — Brazil on Tuesday ratcheted up its campaign to be exempted from a new American program that requires those foreign visitors who need visas to be fingerprinted and photographed on arrival in the United States. The effort followed a meeting late Monday night in which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva personally appealed to President Bush to suspend the measure.

"If there are already 27 countries, then why not 28?" Mr. da Silva was reported by Brazilian officials to have said to Mr. Bush during the meeting, which occurred at a conference of Western Hemisphere heads of government in Monterrey, Mexico. The Brazilian president, a left-leaning former factory worker and labor leader, was referring to a group of mostly European nations whose citizens are largely exempted from the new security measures.

In response to Washington's new policy, Brazil began Jan. 1 to fingerprint and photograph all American citizens arriving here. A judge in the remote state of Mato Grosso said the action was necessary because American policy was "xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors of the Nazis," and the Foreign Ministry endorsed his order, arguing that "reciprocity is a basic element of foreign relations."

On Monday, an appeals court allowed the suspension of the fingerprinting and photographing procedures here in this resort city. Later, just hours before Mr. da Silva's conversation with Mr. Bush, Brazil's national government ordered the federal police not to enforce the appeals court ruling. According to Brazilian news reports, Mr. da Silva intends to use the cumbersome procedures imposed on Americans in order to press Washington to lift its restrictions on Brazilians.

In a statement issued this afternoon, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said that relations between the Western Hemisphere's two largest countries were "intense and dynamic" but implied that ties could cool if the dispute continued. "Recent episodes, such as the new system of identification of travelers, create a negative climate in public opinion with inevitable political implications, which is not in the interest of the two countries," the statement said.

On the face of it, Mr. da Silva's efforts to press the United States to exempt Brazil from the registration program seem doomed, even if Mr. Bush were to show sympathy. Aside from establishing a precedent that other nations would presumably ask for, too, Brazil meets almost none of the standards set by the State Department for inclusion in the group of 27 exempted countries.

For a nation to qualify, the refusal rate on requests for nonimmigrant visas to the United States must be below 3 percent; Brazil's rate is "up in the double digits, nowhere in that ballpark at all," an American consular official said Tuesday. In addition, Brazil does not issue passports that can be scanned by machine, another American requirement.

The American regulations also require nations to "demonstrate that adequate safeguards against fraudulent use of their passports are in place." Skilled forgers here produce both Brazilian and American documents, and American officials said Brazil was second only to Mexico in so-called expedited removals because of false documentation or misrepresentation at United States ports of entry.

Worried that the national government's continued tough line may discourage tourism from the United States in advance of Carnival, the city government here is looking for ways to reduce any loss of business. On Tuesday, visitors began receiving a "welcome kit" that includes a T-shirt reading "Rio Loves You."