Barred From Leaving Without Charges, Flávio Bolsonaro Escapes to Miami

Flávio Bolsonaro is in the United States. The Brazilian senator, ordered by Justice Alexandre de Moraes to surrender his passports the night Lula was declared the winner, crossed into Argentina on Tuesday night, boarded a private jet and stepped off in Miami on Wednesday morning with his wife and two daughters.

He has not been charged with any crime.

The route

Argentina's national migration agency laid out the first leg in an official post on X. At 10:50 p.m. Tuesday, it said, Flávio, his wife Fernanda and their daughters Carolina and Luiza entered Argentina at the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, which links Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil to Puerto Iguazú, "with valid travel documents and without any legal impediment to entering the country." Forty minutes later, the agency said, the family "boarded a private flight dispatched by the company Baires Fly S.A. bound for the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, according to the flight plan." (Translated from Spanish.)

The same agency had said at midday Tuesday that it had no record of him entering. Its new statement came after 2 a.m.

From Guayaquil the Gulfstream jet flew on to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, landing Wednesday morning on a route that avoided Brazilian airspace, according to flight-tracking data cited by Brazil's g1. Live video from Reuters TV and CNN Brasil showed the four stepping off the plane and into a waiting car.

Folha de S.Paulo reported that he crossed the border on an Italian passport. Brazilians leaving by land at that bridge are not required to pass a federal police checkpoint, Brazilian outlets reported, which is why Brazil's police had found no record of him leaving.

Washington's role

A State Department official told reporters on Tuesday that the United States will issue visas to Flávio and his family and let them into the country. President Trump told reporters that night that he did not know where Flávio was but would approve his entry. Folha, citing a person tied to the Trump administration and a person close to Flávio, reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio took an active part in getting him out. Neither the White House nor the State Department has commented on the record.

Flávio has not spoken publicly since leaving. An ally said he would hold a news conference in Miami on Thursday, Folha reported.

Why he left

Moraes ordered the passports seized minutes after Brazil's election court declared Lula the winner of Sunday's runoff, a vote that Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula's former personal lawyer, had extended by two hours at closing time. Flávio, under investigation but never charged, missed Tuesday's deadline to hand the passports over, and police told Moraes the order had been defied. Our earlier report covers that order and the extension.

His brother Eduardo already lives in the United States and calls himself exiled. Flávio now joins him, out of reach of a judge the U.S. Treasury sanctioned in 2025, accusing him of "politicized prosecutions—including against former President Jair Bolsonaro."