Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) landed in Miami on Wednesday morning, less than a day after the Polícia Federal (Federal Police) cancelled his passports because he had not complied with an order from justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Brazil's Supreme Court) requiring him to hand the documents over and barring him from leaving the country.
He did not exit through a regular Brazilian immigration checkpoint, according to a federal police official quoted by Reuters. He remains a sitting senator.
The route, hour by hour
Argentina's immigration authority, cited by Times Brasil and Diário de São Paulo, said the group crossed the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, which links Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil to Puerto Iguazú in Argentina, at around 10:50 pm on Tuesday, Brasília time. There were four of them — the senator, his wife, Fernanda Bolsonaro, and their two daughters — all carrying valid documents and facing no immigration restriction.
About 40 minutes later, at 11:30 pm, they boarded a private jet operated by the Argentine company Baires Fly S.A., a Gulfstream G400 registered LV-JQW, with a filed flight plan for Guayaquil, Ecuador. The aircraft took off from Guayaquil at 6:22 am on Wednesday and landed at 10:23 am at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport in Florida. Flight-tracking data indicates the route did not cross Brazilian airspace.
Argentina's government said no asylum request had been filed. On Tuesday, before the immigration record was confirmed, Argentine officials inspected an aircraft at the Puerto Iguazú airport and found no flight plan listing the family.
What the order said
The order followed a request filed by the federal police on Sunday, which pointed to a flight risk given the post-election political climate, the senator's financial resources and the possibility that he would remain abroad. Moraes ordered the passports seized and banned international travel as part of a money-laundering investigation in which Flávio is a target alongside the lawyer Willer Tomaz. Both deny wrongdoing.
Flávio was served on Monday as he left Jair Bolsonaro's home in Brasília. Hours later he posted a video confirming the summons and denying any intention of leaving Brazil, saying he would stay to organise the opposition. The 24-hour deadline expired on Tuesday with the documents unsurrendered; the federal police cancelled the passports and said they would formally notify the Supreme Court of the breach. As of publication, the senator's lawyers had not commented publicly on the trip.
Visas and reactions
The United States government announced on Tuesday that it would grant visas to the senator and his family. President Donald Trump said publicly that he approved of Flávio travelling to the country and that he did not know where the senator was at that moment.
In Brazil, lawmakers from the governing Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party) asked the Supreme Court for measures against the senator, including an asset freeze; the requests are awaiting a ruling. The Procuradoria-Geral da República (Prosecutor-General's Office) had not commented publicly on his departure by Wednesday afternoon.
Flávio lost last Sunday's run-off to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was re-elected with 51.79% of valid votes, and has not formally conceded: he first spoke of seeking to annul the vote and later of asking the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (Superior Electoral Court) to disqualify Lula's ticket. His party, the Partido Liberal, said on Monday that it recognises Lula's victory.
The precedent is recent and from his own family: Jair Bolsonaro travelled to the United States after refusing to acknowledge his 2022 defeat, returned to Brazil months later and was sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup d'état.
With information from Agência Brasil, Reuters, Times Brasil, Diário de São Paulo and Conjur.
