The research proposed to the Graduate Program in Law at the Federal University of Pará
(UFPA) consists of a case study about the experience of Luzia (fictitious name), a 26-year-old
Haitian immigrant, who was forced to live in Belém/PA since 2018 to 2020 and to respond to
a lawsuit related to her migratory status. By declaring that “this process makes me all worked
up”, a phrase that entitles this research, Luzia highlights not only the violence to which she was
subjected in Brazilian territory, but also the fear of the consequences of state bureaucracies that
can hinder her plans of looking for a better life for the members of his family who stayed in
Haiti. The research aims to analyze how how practices that criminalize migration can impact
the life of a Haitian migrant in Belém/PA. Based on the case study method and the ethnographic
techniques, bibliographic, documentary and field research were carried out. For data collection,
the research techniques were document collection, specifically, administrative and judicial
processes, participant observation and semi-structured interview with Luzia and with
professionals who work directly with migrants and refugees in the State of Pará in the period
of 2020 and 2021. Initially, Luzia's life in Haiti and her plans are introduced, until she was
forced to remain in Brazil, and specific categories of the Haitian migration universe are also
presented, the main one being the diaspora. It also addresses her arrest in the city of Belém,
state of Pará, and the search for refuge in Brazil as an instrument of document regularization.
Luzia suffered violations directly related to the fact that she was a black, poor, migrant woman,
aspects associated to a colonial logic of body control that inserts black people and the poor into
a colonial subjectivity of inferiority and domination, which, in terms of migration, will
determine which will be their spaces and non-spaces in the Brazilian territory. The issue of
domestic work is also addressed, which, if in Brazil it is an activity attributed to black women,
in the central countries of the capital economy, it is a function attributed to black migrant
women like Luzia. The question of the precariousness of reception and social assistance actions
for migrants in the capital of Pará is also exposed, as well as how much this contributed to Luzia
being in a situation of economic vulnerability. Furthermore, the manipulation of legal rules as
a means of maintaining hierarchical power relations is also discussed, since, in the process in
which Luzia responds, there is an overlap between racism, xenophobia and aporophobia.
Finally, it is concluded that although the process has not yet had a sentence acquitting her of
accusations or punishing her with deprivation of liberty, Luzia has suffered since the year 2018
from the restriction of her mobility, which constitutes a serious violation of human rights.
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