Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and his family arrived in Miami on Wednesday, where the United States government will grant them entry visas after he refused to comply with a Brazilian Supreme Court order to surrender his passports.
Reuters TV images showed Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters disembarking from a Gulfstream G400 at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport. The Associated Press and The New York Times confirmed the arrival, with AFP journalists also witnessing the family on US soil.
How he left
Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday’s presidential election to leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left Brazil under a shroud of secrecy after the court order, which relates to a money-laundering investigation in which he denies wrongdoing.
According to Argentina’s migration department, the family entered northern Argentina late on Tuesday evening, then took a private jet to the Ecuadorean city of Guayaquil, and from there flew to Miami. Neither Argentina’s presidency, Ecuadorean ministries nor Baires Fly, the operator of the jet, responded to requests for comment.
The exit followed 48 hours in which Bolsonaro refused to concede to Lula and then threatened to attempt to annul the election result, the AP report notes. He had been widely expected to win and suffered a shock defeat.
His own words, two days earlier
Bolsonaro loses his immunity from prosecution when his Senate term ends in February. On Monday, after the order to hand in his passports, he said he had no plans to flee. “I have never thought about leaving the country,” he said. “I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this travesty, which is a clear attempt to intimidate me.”
Washington’s welcome
US President Donald Trump told reporters he would approve of Bolsonaro coming to the United States, after his State Department said it would give the family entry visas. “I would approve,” Trump said, asked about granting a visa. “I think they’re fine people. The election was really strange, and I thought it was terrible to see it. I didn’t pick sides,” he said in comments carried by The Hill and The Daily Beast. The Hill dated the exchange to Tuesday, outside Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews.
That last clause sits awkwardly with what has been reported about US involvement in the race. Lula has accused Washington of colluding with the Bolsonaro family to help return them to power, and Reuters reported ahead of Sunday’s vote on a US State Department campaign to restore the Bolsonaros to office.
The father’s playbook
This is a pattern the family has run before. Trump has previously alleged that Flavio’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, was a victim of judicial persecution in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro also travelled to the United States after refusing to concede defeat to Lula in 2022, during Joe Biden’s presidency. He eventually returned to Brazil but was later sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup after supporters stormed government buildings in Brasilia. His brother Eduardo Bolsonaro has been based in the United States.
A widening rift
Bolsonaro’s departure threatens to deepen a split between the two most populous nations in the Americas, and a new line of investigation has drawn Washington’s second-ranking official into it. Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Flavio Dino ordered a police investigation on Tuesday, two days after Bolsonaro lost the runoff, into whether the Rockbridge Network, a donor group co-founded by US Vice President JD Vance in 2019, illegally aided Bolsonaro’s losing presidential bid, according to a report by Raw Story citing The Washington Post. The 38-page decision lists five questions for federal police and names Brazilian businessmen Tallis Gomes and Pedro Sang as alleged go-betweens for financial support to the campaign. Vance’s office declined to comment.
What follows now turns on three unresolved questions: the legal status of the family in the United States, whether Brazil formally requests his return, and what happens to Bolsonaro personally once his Senate seat and his immunity end in February.
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