This dissertation proposes an analysis of the politics and practices of categorizing and classifying subjects on the move in search of protection, based on the Brazilian experience of welcoming refugees and, more specifically, the Venezuelan flow in Brazil. For this purpose, the research proceeds with a broad theoretical debate, starting with the discussion on the State, borders, limits and the sense of belonging, as well as engaging with the critical refugee and migration studies. It is argued that the problematic separation between a legitimate refugee and an economic migrant culminates in the multiplication of categories that aim to contain and control human mobility. Such multiplication of categories exposes the will to hinder access to refugee protection, but it also reflects the recognition of these non-refugees need for protection. These relations between protection and regularization, management and control, become clear when we look at how Brazil has dealt with migratory flows in its own territory. In light of the debate, understanding that Brazil is inserted in a broader international context and, therefore, in practices and norms that go beyond its territorial limits, the Venezuelan flow is analyzed as a case study that allows to glimpse the deficiency and insufficiency of these categories of mobility, and their direct relation to the perpetuation of the precarious and provisional condition to which those on the move are subjected to.