By Jack
Flavio Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters have arrived safely in Miami after leaving Brazil, and the U.S. State Department granted the family visas that cleared their path into the United States.
The dramatic arrival came after Brazilian authorities moved to seize the senator’s passport and block him from leaving the country. But by the time the order came down, Bolsonaro and his family were already beyond Brazil’s reach.
Now, a prominent ally of President Trump says Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally coordinated the operation that brought the Bolsonaro family to American soil.
That is a stunning development in a political crisis that has now crossed borders.
The Associated Press confirmed that Bolsonaro and his family landed in the Miami area Wednesday. A State Department official had said one day earlier that the United States would issue visas to Bolsonaro, his wife and their two daughters.
The visa decision gave the family a legal route into the United States as a Brazilian court fight accelerated behind them. According to the AP’s reporting, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passport and prohibited him from leaving Brazil, but the order was issued after he had already departed.
Axios separately reported that the Trump administration was granting visas to the Bolsonaro family after Flavio left Brazil. The move put Washington squarely in the middle of a fast-moving dispute following Brazil’s presidential election.
It also meant the family would not be stranded in transit while the court order and passport fight unfolded back home.
Bolsonaro had been the conservative presidential candidate and narrowly lost Sunday’s runoff election to leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. His departure immediately raised the stakes as Brazilian authorities began moving against him.
South Florida reporters tracked the family’s route through Argentina and Ecuador before their arrival in Miami: