Defeated Brazilian Candidate Flavio Bolsonaro Arrives in Miami After Leaving Brazil

Flavio Bolsonaro, the defeated Brazilian presidential candidate, arrived in Miami on Wednesday with his wife and two daughters. He had refused to concede the election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva before leaving the country.

The family left Brazil late Tuesday for Argentina, according to Argentine officials and flight data, and later travelled on to Ecuador. Argentine immigration officials said they crossed at a border checkpoint and quickly boarded a private charter plane. Flightradar24 showed the plane believed to be carrying Bolsonaro landing in Guayaquil, Ecuador, at about 4 a.m. local time, then departing minutes later for Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport. It landed at about 9:30 a.m. ET.

Bolsonaro, 45, is a senator and a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. He visited the White House in May, and the Trump administration approved U.S. visas for him and his family this week. His father, Jair Bolsonaro, also went to Florida after losing the 2022 election to Lula, and returned to Brazil three months later.

The younger Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil's Supreme Court on accusations of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. The court is examining whether he used a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to senior citizens. In a separate case, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker. He has denied wrongdoing.

The court had ordered him to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports by noon Tuesday. It was unclear whether he complied, though allies said he also holds an Italian passport. A Brazilian diplomat, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told the Associated Press that Bolsonaro used the Italian passport to enter Argentina. The diplomat added that Brazilians leaving by land border are not scrutinized by Brazilian authorities, and that federal police were not monitoring him because the court had not issued an arrest warrant.

Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, addressed supporters outside the presidential residence in Brasilia before the family landed. "I regret that he left Brazil, because he could have stayed here and proven that the accusations are not true," he said. "This act of leaving Brazil is shameful."

Trump said Bolsonaro and his family are welcome in the United States, calling them "fine people." Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, he called the election "really strange" and "terrible." He had earlier said, without evidence, that it was "rigged." Leaders around the world and the Organization of American States have endorsed the result and congratulated Lula, who won the runoff by about 4.4 million votes.

The route through Argentina could add to diplomatic tension between Lula's government and Argentine President Javier Milei, another Trump ally who travelled to Brazil to help Bolsonaro's campaign. Presidential spokesperson Juan Pablo Carreira said on social media that Milei's administration rescued Bolsonaro "from the claws of communism, which seeks to imprison all opposition figures." Brazil's government has not responded to requests for comment.

Before leaving, Bolsonaro visited his father, who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for an attempted coup after the 2022 election. In a video on Monday, Flavio Bolsonaro said he was trying to organize opposition to the results among congressional colleagues. His Senate term expires Jan. 31, 2027.