Photo: Agência Senado, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (file photo, Nov. 30, 2021; Flávio Bolsonaro in the Brazilian Senate, with lawyer Frederick Wassef).
Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil’s presidential runoff on Sunday, landed in Miami on Wednesday, Oct. 28, with his wife and two daughters, three days after the vote and one day after Brazil’s Federal Police canceled his passports on a Supreme Court order. The Associated Press reported that the plane touched down at Miami-Opa-locka Executive Airport at about 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.
The trip followed a departure from Brazil reported earlier Wednesday. Bolsonaro, 45, is a senator from Rio de Janeiro for the Liberal Party (PL) and the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The route: Foz do Iguaçu, Argentina, Ecuador, Miami
Argentina’s National Migration Directorate said the family crossed into Argentina at 10:50 p.m. Tuesday over the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, which links Foz do Iguaçu in Paraná state with Puerto Iguazú in Misiones province. “Those who did so possessed valid travel documentation and faced no legal impediments to entering the country,” the agency said in a statement on X, as quoted by AP. It said the four boarded a private charter run by Baires Fly S.A. at 11:30 p.m., with a filed flight plan to Guayaquil, Ecuador.
G1 reported that the aircraft was a Gulfstream G400 registered LV-JQW with three Argentine crew members, and that, according to a passenger document it obtained, the senator used an Italian passport for the flight out of Argentina. Flight-tracking data cited by AP showed a brief stop in Guayaquil around 4 a.m. local time before the jet continued to Florida. G1 said the route did not cross Brazilian airspace.
The Supreme Court case and the canceled passports
Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered on the night of Sunday, Oct. 25, that Bolsonaro surrender his passports and barred him from leaving the country, according to G1. Brazil’s Federal Police said the senator was notified Monday morning, did not hand over the documents by the 11 a.m. Tuesday deadline, and that his regular and diplomatic passports were then canceled.
AP described two STF investigations covering alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. In one, he is investigated over the alleged use of a sports-betting company to launder money from fraudulent deductions taken from senior citizens’ government pensions. In the other, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker. G1 reported that the passport order came in a money-laundering probe that also names lawyer Willer Tomaz, involving his companies and betting firms; both men say they are friends but deny being business partners or any wrongdoing. Bolsonaro’s Senate term ends Jan. 31, 2027, which AP noted will also end his right to be tried by the Supreme Court.
How he entered the United States
AP reported that the U.S. government said Monday it would grant visas to Bolsonaro and his family. O Globo said a public U.S. Customs and Border Protection travel-history record it checked shows an entry on Oct. 28 under his Brazilian diplomatic passport number, the document canceled a day earlier; CNN Brasil said it confirmed that report. O Globo also reported that his entry record lists a “DT” class of admission, a temporary authorization granted at the port of entry, valid until Oct. 27, 2027. U.S. authorities had not publicly detailed the terms of his entry as of Wednesday afternoon.
The election result
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) final count gave President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79% of valid votes, to Bolsonaro’s 59,826,041, or 48.21%, a margin of about 4.43 million. Turnout was 80.78%. AP reported that Bolsonaro refused to concede, said in a video Monday that he was organizing opposition to the results among fellow lawmakers, and that the Organization of American States and leaders around the world endorsed the result. More on the vote is in our runoff report.
Reactions
Lula, speaking to supporters outside the presidential residence in Brasília before the plane landed, said, according to AP: “I regret that he left Brazil, because he could have stayed here and proven that the accusations are not true. This act of leaving Brazil is shameful.”
Paulo Figueiredo, a Bolsonaro ally who lives in the United States, said in a statement that “Flávio Bolsonaro is well, in security and resting with his family,” and announced a press conference in Miami on Thursday, AP reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews that “the election was really strange, and I thought it was terrible,” and called the Bolsonaros “fine people,” according to AP. Argentine government spokesman Adrián Ravier said, “there is no asylum request (from Bolsonaro) and there is nothing more to add.” AP said Brazil’s government did not immediately respond to its requests for comment.
Sources
- PBS News / Associated Press: Defeated Brazilian candidate Flávio Bolsonaro arrives in U.S. amid investigation
- AP News: Flávio Bolsonaro and his family arrive in Miami
- Tribunal Superior Eleitoral: official second-round results
- G1: Flávio Bolsonaro used canceled diplomatic passport to enter the U.S. (Portuguese)
- G1: Italian passport used to leave Argentina (Portuguese)
Additional sources
- O Globo: CBP record shows canceled diplomatic passport (Portuguese)
- O Globo: “DT” admission class on entry record (Portuguese)
- CNN Brasil: Which passports he used (Portuguese)
- Wikimedia Commons: image file page
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