Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro arrives in Miami despite travel ban
After Brazil’s Supreme Court barred him from leaving, the senator and his family reached Florida on October 28 via Argentina and Ecuador.
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After Brazil’s Supreme Court barred him from leaving, the senator and his family reached Florida on October 28 via Argentina and Ecuador.
Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro arrived in Florida with his family on October 28 despite a Brazilian court order barring him from leaving the country. They landed at Miami-Opa Locka airport that morning after stops in Argentina and Ecuador.
Bolsonaro has been a senator for Rio de Janeiro since 2019 and is a son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. He lost the presidential runoff to incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on October 25.
DW said Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters were seen disembarking that morning. The family briefly remained inside the airport, then emerged under black umbrellas, entered a dark grey vehicle and left under police escort without Bolsonaro speaking to the press, the Guardian said.
How and when Bolsonaro reached the Argentine border remains unclear. There is a gap between his last sighting by allies at about 18:00 on October 26 and his recorded entry into Argentina late on October 27.
Argentina’s National Directorate of Migration said the family entered through the Tancredo Neves International Bridge in Misiones province at 22:50 local time on October 27. At 23:30, they boarded a private flight from Puerto Iguazú whose declared destination was Guayaquil, Ecuador. Infobae published the authority’s account.
The authority said the family had valid travel documents, faced no legal impediment to entering Argentina and passed through without incident.
The ruling follows his presidential-runoff defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The court gave him 24 hours to surrender his passports; two police sources say they were cancelled on 27 October after he missed that deadline.
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Agência Brasil said on October 26 that Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had imposed the travel ban and ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports to Brazil’s Federal Police. The order is under seal.
The restrictions concern a Supreme Court investigation involving Bolsonaro and lawyer Willer Tomaz, who is suspected of money laundering linked to betting businesses. In its preliminary investigation, the Federal Police alleges that Bolsonaro benefited from funds from Alcazar Holdings, a company based in Madeira, Portugal, that is also under investigation. Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing, Al Jazeera said.
Bolsonaro challenged the restrictions, saying Moraes had relied on his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro’s suggestion that he leave Brazil if he lost the election. He said the decision was taken on election night and that federal officers notified him on October 26 as he left his father’s home in Brasília.
France 24 said on October 27 that his passports had been cancelled after he failed to comply with the court order. It also said he allegedly intended to seek asylum in the US.
The US State Department said it would issue visas for Bolsonaro and his family and permit their entry. The White House confirmed that commitment on October 27, Metrópoles said. Al Jazeera said on October 28 that the family had been granted entry visas.
Entry visas do not themselves grant asylum, which is a separate procedure. The visa announcement did not include a formal asylum decision.
The Guardian said Bolsonaro was expected to hold a press conference in the US on October 28 or 29.