Flávio Bolsonaro, the Brazilian presidential candidate who faces multiple criminal investigations, is staying in Florida on a temporary immigration status that was given following orders by President Trump, and will likely be granted permanent residency later, U.S. officials said.
Mr. Bolsonaro fled Brazil after losing an election this week. U.S. border agents allowed him and his family to enter the United States on a parole immigration status after they landed in Miami on a private jet on Wednesday morning, a U.S. official said that day.
The jet had been arranged by a White House official. President Trump said later that afternoon that Mr. Bolsonaro had been given “a pass” to enter the country.
The White House and the State Department referred questions about Mr. Bolsonaro’s parole status and Mr. Trump’s involvement to the Department of Homeland Security. That agency said Mr. Bolsonaro and his family “were met and inspected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in accordance with applicable immigration laws and procedures. At the conclusion of the inspection, Mr. Bolsonaro and his accompanying family members were released.”
A public U.S. government record suggests that Mr. Bolsonaro presented a canceled Brazilian diplomatic passport on arrival, according to a review by The New York Times. The record lists a document with a number issued in Brazil that public disclosures show is linked to Mr. Bolsonaro’s diplomatic passport.
The State Department said through an official on Tuesday that it planned to issue visas to Mr. Bolsonaro and his family allowing them to enter the country. The White House said the same thing that day, citing an administration official.
The U.S. government grants parole status to people “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” according to a federal website. The status allows a person to remain in the United States while “treated as an applicant for admission,” the site says.
Mr. Bolsonaro is expected to apply at some point for permanent resident status in the United States, known as a green card, a U.S. official said. That normally would happen after he is given an immigrant visa. Mr. Bolsonaro’s application for a green card would be processed quickly, similar to that of his younger brother before him, the official said.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s younger brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, lives in Texas and maintains close ties to the Trump administration, and was granted permanent resident status in July. The process takes years for most immigrants, but the younger Bolsonaro got expedited approval, a U.S. official said.
Flávio Bolsonaro set off for the United States after Brazilian police asked him to turn over his passports on Monday because he is being investigated in relation to a money laundering scheme.
While Mr. Bolsonaro, a right-wing senator who has held elected office for more than two decades, has not been formally charged with a crime, he will be stripped of his parliamentary immunity in early 2027 because he lost the presidential election on Sunday. He could then potentially face prosecution in relation to multiple criminal investigations.
He flew late Tuesday from Argentina to Ecuador for refueling and finally to Miami, all on a private jet arranged by Jason Miller, a White House communications official, according to a person familiar with the logistics. Mr. Bolsonaro’s younger brother Eduardo has been in touch with Mr. Miller. The plan was put into motion on Monday, after Mr. Bolsonaro was told to turn in his passports, the person said.
On Sunday, Mr. Bolsonaro was decisively defeated in the election by the incumbent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Mr. Miller, who is listed as a special U.S. government employee, declined to comment, and the White House referred only to public remarks by Mr. Trump, which did not address the private jet. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Mr. Miller’s involvement. He is an ally of the Bolsonaro family, and has said he was briefly detained on a visit to Brazil in 2021.
After landing in Miami, Mr. Bolsonaro declared himself the legitimate leader of Brazil.
Just after 9:30 a.m. Monday, Mr. Bolsonaro could be seen leaving a small jet at a private airport outside Miami along with his family. The group was ushered into a dark S.U.V. shortly after exiting the airport, hidden under umbrellas.
His journey took place during a whirlwind 24 hours in which officials and journalists from multiple countries tried to determine where he was and how he was getting to the United States. Mr. Bolsonaro crossed into Argentina late Tuesday before traversing South America on the private plane.
Mr. Bolsonaro, in a lengthy statement on social media on Wednesday afternoon, said he had left Brazil because he faced political persecution and thanked Mr. Trump and President Javier Milei of Argentina. After initially declaring himself the “legitimate president-elect” of Brazil, Mr. Bolsonaro deleted his statement and reposted it using the word “leader” instead.
“I address the Brazilian people and the international community as the leader of Brazil,” Mr. Bolsonaro said. Without offering credible evidence, he claimed the election that he lost was fraudulent and that he was the subject of a “witch hunt” by Brazil’s judiciary.
The White House’s assistance to Mr. Bolsonaro could escalate tensions between the Trump administration and Mr. Lula, who has accused Mr. Trump of interfering in Brazil’s internal affairs.
When asked about Mr. Bolsonaro on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said, “We gave him a pass to come into the country, so we’ll see. But I won’t get involved. It was a very strange election, that’s for sure.”
On Thursday, Mr. Trump declined to say who was the election’s legitimate winner. He said he had not taken sides in the vote because Mr. Lula had asked him to refrain from doing so. “I thought the election was a very great embarrassment to the people of Brazil,” he said.
This year, the State Department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio took actions on Brazil after lobbying by the two Bolsonaro sons, The New York Times reported.
The two are sons of a former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a lengthy sentence under house detention for attempting a coup. Flávio Bolsonaro conceded this week’s election, but seized on a change in the voting hours on Sunday to demand the outcome be annulled.
The change in hours, though, affected only 0.03 percent of the vote and Brazil’s electoral authorities said it did not make any difference to the result, given Mr. Lula’s winning margin of 4.4 million votes. International independent observers have certified the integrity of the election and dozens of countries have recognized the result. The United States and Argentina are not among them.
Mr. Bolsonaro, in his statement on Wednesday, doubled down on his complaints. He also insisted that Mr. Lula had unfairly used government funds to win, citing the president’s move to raise a welfare stipend in the last stretch of the campaign. (Mr. Lula’s government has said the increase was an overdue inflation adjustment.)
Mr. Bolsonaro crossed from Brazil to Argentina by land on Tuesday night with his wife and two daughters, Argentina’s National Directorate of Migration said Wednesday. It said that he then boarded a private fight to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and from there went on to the United States.
On Monday, Brazilian authorities asked Mr. Bolsonaro to hand over his passports within 24 hours because of investigations into his links to a Brazilian lawyer accused of laundering more than $1 billion through a scheme involving online gambling.
Separately, Mr. Bolsonaro is the subject of a police inquiry over millions of dollars he raised to finance a biopic about his father from a disgraced banker at the center of a huge corruption scheme.
When Mr. Bolsonaro did not turn in his passports by Tuesday morning, Brazilian authorities canceled the travel documents and issued an alert to immigration authorities barring Mr. Bolsonaro’s exit from the country. It was not immediately clear how he was able to cross into Argentina.
Brazil’s federal police said it had no official record of Mr. Bolsonaro exiting the country. The police also said, in a statement, that the restrictions on Mr. Bolsonaro’s travel and documents did not necessarily make him a fugitive or allow for his arrest. The police are now “investigating the circumstances surrounding the senator’s failure to comply with court orders.”
Argentina’s federal police also said they had not registered his entry. Still, Argentina’s immigration authorities said that Mr. Bolsonaro and his family had entered the country at 10:50 p.m. Tuesday. They traveled in a van across what is known as the “Fraternity Bridge,” connecting Foz do Iguaçu in southern Brazil to Puerto Iguazú in Argentina.
The area is popular with tourists because of the majestic waterfalls along the Brazil-Argentina border.
Some 40 minutes later, Mr. Bolsonaro and his entourage embarked on a plane owned by Baires Fly, a private company that has transported Mr. Milei in the past.
Alice Maciel and Thayz Guimarães contributed reporting from Brasília, and Emma Bubola and Lucía Cholakian Herrera from Buenos Aires and Adam B. Ellick from São Paulo.
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