By Luciana Magalhaes
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian officials demanded that US agents remove handcuffs from a group of deportees who were flown to the South American country on Friday, with a prominent minister in President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government calling the practice “blatant disrespect” for the rights of its fellow citizens.
Federal police, acting under instructions from Brazil’s Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, encountered the flight after it made an unexpected landing in the Amazon city of Manaus due to technical problems, the Brazilian government said in a statement on Saturday.
The plane, which was carrying 88 Brazilian passengers, 16 U.S. security officers and eight crew members, was initially scheduled to arrive in Belo Horizonte in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, according to the statement.
The handcuffs were removed from the passengers after the intervention of Brazilian police, the government said.
After being informed of the incident, Lula ordered that the passengers be flown aboard a Brazilian Air Force plane to their final destination, ensuring that they could complete their journey with “dignity and safety.” , according to a Brazilian statement from the Ministry of Justice.
The flight was the second this year from the United States carrying undocumented migrants who had been deported to Brazil and the first since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, according to Brazil’s Justice Ministry and federal police.
The Trump administration has undertaken a sweeping immigration crackdown, with the Republican president vowing to use mass deportations to remove undocumented migrants in the United States
The use of handcuffs and other restraints on deported migrants on flights from the United States to Brazil has sparked controversy in the South American nation. Conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, also called for the practice.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
