By handcuffing and shackling Brazilians, the United States acted strictly in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, since it treated Brazilians equally before its own law. Therefore, those Brazilians have no reason to complain about the handcuffs and chains. With all due respect, they should have been given a paper bag to put over their heads, hiding their faces.
Regarding the episode involving a few dozen Brazilians who, on 26/1/25, disembarked handcuffed and chained from an aircraft with American registration in Manaus, some considerations are necessary.
No treaty or convention in international law sets out how repatriates should be treated. There are human rights and humanitarian law rules on how states in general should treat people, and some of them address particular situations, for example, during a war. However, there are no specific rules on how to repatriate immigrants.
Two multilateral conventions address the issue of immigrants. The oldest one deals with immigrant-refugee (which does not apply to the situation of Brazilians in general), the 1951 Refugee Convention. The second deals with the immigrant (and his family) from the perspective of work, the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (not very prestigious, and neither Brazil nor the United States signed it). Additionally, there is the 2000 Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Organized Crime.
The migration of people, whatever the reason for migration, is the subject of the care of the International Organization for Migration –International Organization of Migration (IOM), which belongs to the UN system.
It is not true that there is a protocol, agreement, treaty, or pact between Brazil and the United States on the repatriation of Brazilians who immigrated illegally to that country. There is, the Brazilian government says, an exchange of diplomatic messages by which Brazil authorizes the flight of aircraft with Brazilian repatriates from the United States to Brazil at the expense of the Americans, although Brazilians committed the illegality. Such flights began in 2018, and Brazilians have always been chained. So, that fact is not “President Trump’s news”. By the way, about the embarrassment of Brazilians chained by Americans, by the way, the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo of 16/8/88 published a Brazilian, in New York, being sent in chains to the Brazilian consulate (at the time, located on Fifth Avenue).
It would never be possible for an international law to establish that “people should not be handcuffed indiscriminately”. Handcuffing concerns public safety, which is presumed to be at risk when dealing with a detained individual. Therefore, it is natural for someone who is arrested, that is, deprived of their freedom, to be handcuffed, as it is natural for them to want to escape or perform some act to free themselves and, thus, cause harm to themselves, public agents or third parties. Therefore, as a rule, whoever is arrested must be handcuffed, even if the arrest is administrative and not criminal, as is the case with those Brazilians “opening in style” the 2025 repatriation season.
Finally, the type of device used to restrain prisoners (handcuffs, chains, chokeholds, ropes, etc.) could not be the subject of international law concerns. If custody is the responsibility of the State, in principle, only it and its agents can assess the risks of such custody.
It certainly offends the pride of our nationals to see them chained. However, I think that accepting such chains with dignity would be redeeming. Those Brazilians are, above all, lawbreakers. One stated that he paid R$170.000,00 to bypass the US border. Therefore, they must be subject to the full force of the law of the country they broke.
It is common knowledge that the United States is tough on its own prisoners, who are, in fact, handcuffed, chained and, sometimes, even tied to an ankle ball. Don’t forget: In the United States, Americans who are arrested may be subjected to forced labour!
“By handcuffing and chaining Brazilians, the United States acted strictly in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, since it treated Brazilians equally before its own law. Therefore, those Brazilians have nothing to complain about the handcuffs and chains. With all due respect, they should have been offered a paper bag to put over their heads, hiding their faces.”
As for the other complaints of thermal discomfort in the aircraft, rude treatment, etc., it is not appropriate for the Brazilian Government to raise the issue to a diplomatic level. Generally, all prisoners have complaints, a “litany that every prisoner always does”, mainly because discomfort is inherent to the loss of freedom; it will be enough to order the federal police to put an end to the complainants’ complaints and through diplomatic channels, send them to the United States.
Regarding the subject – prisoners – it is pertinent to remember that the Brazilian Government is among those that most violate the human rights of prisoners and manages its prisons so poorly that criminal organizations have been born there.
Finally, and in conclusion, the event of handcuffing and chaining illegal Brazilian immigrants on a flight from the United States to Brazil, in principle, meets the need for flight safety, and that event is not the subject of any bilateral agreement/convention/treaty between Brazil and the United States, nor is it a matter legislated under international law, so it is not appropriate for Brazilian escalates it to an issue of diplomatic channels.