Barrados na Ponte da Integração: imigrantes nas fronteiras da Amazônia Sul Ocidental durante a pandemia

Abstract

At one end is the city of Assis Brasil, in the State of Acre, Brazil; in the other, Iñapari, in the Department of Madre de Dios, Peru; between the two is the city of Bolpebra, in the Department of Pando, in Bolivia. On the Integration Bridge, which connects countries, on one of the main axes of the Interoceanic Highway (South-Western Amazon), immigrants of different nationalities are barred by the closing of borders, a policy reiterated by neighboring countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. The situation gained special visibility in mid-2020 and early 2021, two moments in which the volume of people and the period of time they were held over the bridge expanded the humanitarian dimensions of the sanitary crisis. Taking these two empirical circumstances of the Amazon reality as a starting point, the article reflects on the production of the condition of migrant illegality, discussing the border regimes practiced in the region, whose consequences enhance the social and labor vulnerability of immigrants during the pandemic. It is an empirical social investigation, guided by the critical framework of sociology, through a combination of bibliographic and documental research, with a contribution of ethnography. Despite the existing regulations for the defense of the human rights of immigrants, circumstances such as the pandemic reinforced the adversities for its effectiveness and implied in the intensification of police control at the borders, which in the name of the prerogative of health protection became more restrictive, violent and excluding, notably in relation to impoverished indigenous and black immigrants who circulate along the Amazonian borders.