Defeated Brazilian election candidate Flavio Bolsonaro arrived in the US late on Tuesday, according to media reports, despite a court ordering he surrender his passports amid an ongoing corruption investigation.
The right-wing politician, son of jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro, landed in Miami and was received by his brother Eduardo upon his arrival, sources told the BBC. His arrival in the US was also reported by Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, though there has been no official confirmation of his whereabouts.
Bolsonaro’s party has conceded defeat in Sunday’s election, but he has said he plans to challenge the result and fled the country with his wife and two daughters after the Trump administration announced it would give him and his family visas.
Police said that Bolsonaro had failed to comply with an order to surrender his passports within 24 hours as part of a probe into alleged money laundering, which he denies.
Donald Trump told reporters early on Wednesday that he “approves” of Bolsonaro coming to the US, saying of the family: “ I think they're fine people.”
Trump did not formally endorse Bolsonaro ahead of the election, although his campaign for the presidency was reportedly backed by two senior State Department officials, including through sanctions designed to weaken his rival president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Trump said: “The election was very strange, and I thought it was terrible. It's gotten bad reviews. You look at what happened to their market.
“I think it's so terrible to see it. I didn't take sides, you know. I know them both. I know Lula. I know Flavio a little bit. I know the father very well. The father was treated really badly. I thought, but I wasn't involved. That's Brazil. It's a different country,” he said.
Argentina said Bolsonaro and his family briefly entered the country on Tuesday night via a land border crossing, before departing on a flight bound for Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government is yet to comment.
Lula said Bolsonaro’s exit from the country was “shameful” and that he should have stayed to prove his innocence.
Bolsonaro said in a video posted Monday on his social media channels that he “never thought about leaving the country” and instead was attempting to organise opposition among his congressional colleagues to the election results.
Bolsonaro lost the presidential election with 48.25 per cent of the vote to Lula’s 51.75 per cent, which gave the latter a historic fourth term as president.
Bolsonaro’s eight-year term as a senator expires on 31 January 2027, which will also cause him to lose special jurisdiction at the country's Supreme Court.
Brazilians had earlier taken to social media to ask where Bolsonaro was. Reporters gathered outside his home in the capital, Brasilia, but he did not appear.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Security of Argentina denied reports the Brazilian senator had entered the country. Brazilian media outlets reported that many Bolsonaro allies had been unable to reach him.
Following media reports about a private plane at Iguazu International Airport on the Argentina-Brazil border, Argentine authorities checked the aircraft and its crew. They found no flight plan listing the Bolsonaro family.
A spokesperson for right-wing Argentine President Javier Milei, who has yet to congratulate Lula on his victory, said, "There is no asylum request," declining to give further details.
It appears that Bolsonaro could be following the footsteps of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who moved to the United States after refusing to concede losing to Lula in 2022.
The elder Bolsonaro eventually returned to Brazil but was later given a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup.
His son has yet to officially concede defeat, saying on Sunday he would seek the annulment of the result over alleged voter irregularities.
He said he would ask for the result to be annulled after a Lula-appointed Supreme Court justice extended voting by two hours over transport irregularities.
“It is impossible to recognise the election results, given the circumstances under which things unfolded,” Bolsonaro told journalists.
However, his Liberal Party said on Monday it acknowledged Lula's victory.
With 100 per cent of votes counted, 80-year-old Lula took a 51.79 per cent share of the vote against his 45-year-old rival’s 48.21 per cent. Analysts said high voter turnout may have helped Lula snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, on the eve of his 81st birthday.
Bolsonaro’s petition is undermined by the fact that his campaign also sought a voting extension due to heavy rains in the conservative-leaning south.
But his refusal to concede could nonetheless spark a wave of protests in a country where faith in the electoral system, and in judicial independence, has been strained in recent years, observers say.
Right-wing influencer Paulo Figueiredo, who serves as a sort of unofficial spokesperson for the Bolsonaro family, declined to answer questions about Bolsonaro's whereabouts.
"After months of intense work that has been unfairly thwarted, I am not in the mood to speak to the press," he said in a message. "If I have any comments to make on any matter, I will get in touch."
Eduardo, Bolsonaro's younger brother who lives in the United States, said ahead of the vote that an election loss would require a move.
"If my brother does not win, I'm in favour that he would leave the country," he told podcaster Steven Crowder this month.
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