Flávio Bolsonaro, the candidate defeated in Brazil’s elections, landed in Miami on Wednesday, declaring himself the legitimate leader of the nation he fled after Brazilian authorities asked him to surrender his passports as part of a money-laundering investigation.
Mr. Bolsonaro arrived in the United States after apparently vanishing for a whirlwind 24 hours during which it was largely unclear where he was and how, or if, he would reach the United States.
The State Department plans to issue visas allowing him and his family to enter the country, a senior department official said on Tuesday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.
Just after 9:30 a.m., Mr. Bolsonaro could be seen leaving a plane at a private airport outside Miami along with his family, according to news media video footage. The group was ushered into an S.U.V. shortly after exiting the airport, hidden under umbrellas.
Mr. Bolsonaro had embarked on the journey by crossing into Argentina, before traversing South America on a private plane to reach the United States.
Mr. Bolsonaro, in a lengthy statement on social media on Wednesday afternoon, said he had left Brazil because he faced political persecution and thanked President 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 true president-elect of Brazil,” Mr. Bolsonaro said. He claimed the election that he lost was fraudulent and that he was the subject of a “witch hunt” by Brazil’s judiciary.
The U.S. government’s assistance to Mr. Bolsonaro could escalate tensions between the Trump administration and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has accused President Trump of interfering in his country’s internal affairs.
Mr. Bolsonaro, a right-wing senator and the son of a former president serving a lengthy sentence for attempting a coup, lost Sunday’s presidential vote to Mr. Lula. After initially contesting the result, he conceded but claimed Mr. Lula had won through unfair tactics.
Mr. Trump has also criticized the election, saying it appeared to have been “rigged.” When questioned about Mr. Bolsonaro on Wednesday, Mr. Trump struck a milder tone. “We gave him a pass to come into the country, so we’ll see,” he told reporters. “But I won’t get involved. It was a very strange election, that’s for sure.”
Following his loss, Mr. Bolsonaro seized on a change in the voting hours on Sunday to demand the election be annulled because of foul play. But the change affected only 0.03 percent of the vote and Brazil’s electoral authorities said it did not make any difference to the result, which saw Mr. Lula win by a margin of 4.4 million votes over Mr. Bolsonaro.
In his statement on Wednesday, Mr. Bolsonaro doubled down on those complaints. He also insisted that Mr. Lula had unfairly used government funds to win, citing the leftist president’s move to raise a welfare stipend in the last stretch of the campaign. (Mr. Lula’s government claimed 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. He flew from Ecuador to the United States.
On Monday, Brazilian authorities had asked Mr. Bolsonaro to hand over his passports within 24 hours because he is being investigated over his links to a Brazilian lawyer accused of laundering more than $1 billion through a scheme involving online gambling.
Separately, Mr. Bolsonaro is also the subject of a police inquiry over millions of dollars he raised from a disgraced banker at the center of a huge corruption scheme to finance a biopic of his father, Jair Bolsonaro. The elder Mr. Bolsonaro was convicted of attempting a coup after losing the presidential election in 2022 to Mr. Lula and is serving his prison sentence under house detention.
When Mr. Bolsonaro didn’t comply by Tuesday morning, Brazilian authorities canceled his 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 the border into Argentina.
The Brazilian 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 in a statement overnight that Mr. Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters entered the country at 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday. They made the journey in a van, crossing what is known as the “Fraternity Bridge,” connecting Foz do Iguaçu in southern Brazil to Puerto Iguazú in Argentina.
The group crossed the border “with valid travel documentation and without any legal impediment to entering the country,” the Argentine immigration agency said in a statement. In addition to his Brazilian documents, Mr. Bolsonaro, who also holds Italian citizenship, had also been asked to turn over his Italian passport.
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. Once in Ecuador, they took another flight early on Wednesday morning that was headed to Miami.
Public U.S. government records suggest that Mr. Bolsonaro entered the United States with a canceled Brazilian diplomatic passport.
At home, Mr. Bolsonaro’s abrupt and mysterious departure left many of his political allies perplexed. Ahead of his escape to the United States, his party had urged him to concede and harness the vast support he had drawn in Sunday’s election to lead the right-wing opposition in Brazil.
On Monday morning, Mr. Bolsonaro signaled his intention to do just that. In a video posted to social media, he said he intended to comply with a court order to hand over his passports and claimed he had never considered leaving Brazil.
“We secured a majority in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies — a victory you delivered for Brazil,” Mr. Bolsonaro told his followers.
Mr. Bolsonaro vowed to turn Brazil’s legislature into a “fortress” guarding against Mr. Lula’s agenda.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s political party made major electoral gains and now holds the largest slice of seats in both chambers. Among those elected were Mr. Bolsonaro’s two brothers, his stepmother and an uncle.
In the United States, Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies cheered his arrival online, claiming he will now lead an opposition movement while in exile.
Reporting was contributed by David C. Adams in Miami, Emma Bubola in Buenos Aires, Adam B. Ellick in São Paulo, Thayz Guimarães in Brasília, Hamed Aleaziz in Washington, and Karla Adam in London.
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