A senior US State Department official has said Brazilian opposition candidate Flavio Bolsonaro and his family will be granted US visas after his weekend defeat to incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to visa privacy laws, said “the State Department will issue visas to Flavio Bolsanaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States”.
Mr Bolsonaro, who had President Donald Trump’s tacit support, had been under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in Brazil and had been ordered to surrender his passport.
The State Department official did not say if Bolsonaro had already left Brazil or if he and his family were en route to the US.
Mr Bolsonaro’s brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in Texas, had publicly encouraged him to leave Brazil if he lost the election.
Eduardo Bolsonaro was convicted in absentia in June of illegally lobbying the Trump administration and sentenced to four years in prison. A warrant was recently issued for his arrest.
Flavio Bolsonaro’s decision to leave Brazil came as a deadline for him to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports expired at noon on Tuesday. It remained unclear whether he had complied.
His father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup following his 2022 election loss to Lula. After that defeat, Jair Bolsonaro fled Brazil for Florida. He returned three months later.
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