The United States will issue visas to Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and his family following his defeat in Sunday’s presidential runoff against incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a senior State Department official confirmed Tuesday.
The official, speaking anonymously to The Associated Press because of federal visa confidentiality regulations, said “the State Department will issue visas to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States.”
The announcement comes amid uncertainty over Bolsonaro’s whereabouts and whether he departed Brazil before complying with a court order requiring him to surrender his passports.
The senator has been under investigation in Brazil over allegations involving corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion.
The State Department official did not indicate whether Bolsonaro had already left Brazil or whether he and his family were traveling to the United States.
CNN reported earlier Tuesday that Bolsonaro had managed to depart Brazil with his wife and two daughters and was heading to the US.
Brazilian and Argentine media outlets reported that the senator had crossed the border into Argentina on foot before apparently continuing his journey by plane.
However, Argentina’s immigration authorities denied that Bolsonaro had entered the country, leaving his reported travel route unconfirmed.
Neither Bolsonaro’s spokesperson nor his campaign manager, Rogério Marinho, provided clarification. The spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, while Marinho declined to discuss the matter.
Bolsonaro’s reported departure coincided with a noon Tuesday deadline to surrender both his regular and diplomatic passports.
It was not immediately known whether he had complied with the order.
The senator was formally served with the passport surrender order on Monday, one day after losing the presidential election.
Bolsonaro said he received the order outside the residence where his father, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup following his defeat to Lula in the 2022 presidential election.
Following that election, the elder Bolsonaro traveled to Florida before returning to Brazil three months later.
According to The Associated Press, the order against Flávio Bolsonaro was issued Sunday by Brazil’s Supreme Court and remains under seal. The news agency reviewed a copy of the document.
The younger Bolsonaro has refused to acknowledge his electoral defeat and has made allegations of voting fraud without providing supporting evidence.
Sunday’s runoff concluded a presidential contest in which Bolsonaro initially finished ahead of Lula in the first round earlier this month.
Because neither candidate received the more than 50% of votes required to win outright, the election proceeded to a second round, which Lula won.
Beyond their competing visions for Brazil’s domestic policies, the two candidates have expressed markedly different positions on Israel and its counterterrorism campaign against Hamas.
During a visit to Israel in January, Bolsonaro visited the Western Wall and several locations in Judea and Samaria, while pledging to move Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if elected president.
“It is an honor to defend Judeo-Christian values and to show the Jewish people that the Brazilian people support them,” Bolsonaro said during the visit.
His father also maintained close ties with Israel, including a visit to the country in March 2019 while serving as president.
Lula, meanwhile, has repeatedly drawn criticism from Israel over his statements concerning the war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Brazilian president previously compared Israel’s operations in Gaza to the Nazi persecution of Jews under Adolf Hitler during World War II, triggering a diplomatic dispute between Jerusalem and Brasília.
Amid the confrontation, Brazil announced that it was recalling its ambassador to Israel and summoning the Israeli ambassador for a reprimand.
Despite the diplomatic fallout, Lula continued to accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
“What the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide. Children and women are being murdered,” he wrote on social media.
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