Heading to the Argentine border, hundreds of kilometers away, on Tuesday, Bolsonaro, with his wife and two daughters, crossed the Tancredo Neves International Bridge near Foz do Iguaçu, where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay intersect, and entered the city of Puerto Iguazú at 22.50 local time.
According to information provided by Argentine authorities, the vehicle crossing the border was accompanied by Argentine airport security police and took the family to the passport control point at Iguazú Falls International Airport.
Santiago Caputo, a top advisor to Argentine President Javier Milei who personally monitored the process from Puerto Iguazú, was in direct contact with Flávio's younger brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, for coordination, according to a former Argentine intelligence chief and a person involved in the operation.
According to flight tracking data, a Gulfstream G400 type jet belonging to the private airline Baires Fly, which arrived from Buenos Aires the day before, was waiting at the airport. The flight was arranged by a small group working with the well-connected Eduardo Bolsonaro, including Jason Miller, an advisor to US President Donald Trump.
According to the Argentinian flight manifest reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters, traveling with an Italian passport, boarded the plane with tail number LV-JQW at 23.30. The jet, with two pilots and a cabin attendant, took off at 00.21 on Wednesday; On the way to the USA, it stopped in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to refuel.
Landing at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport around 09.30 on Wednesday morning, Bolsonaro and his family, wearing a navy blue polo shirt and backpack, were placed in a waiting SUV by uniformed officers, who screened them with umbrellas to protect them from cameras.
The family's entry into the United States was secured through the efforts of senior US officials, influential Trump allies and Argentinian leader Milei.
When Trump personally approved the admission of Bolsonaro and his family on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio moved to issue the visas, according to people familiar with the arrangements; however, the family entered the country with humanitarian parole status, which allows them to stay for a year.
Bolsonaro, who made a statement from Miami on Wednesday and described himself as the "leader of Brazil", thanked Trump for hosting him in the "land of the free" and Milei for his "courage" and "sense of justice".
This asylum decision was the culmination of years of lobbying by the Bolsonaro family to involve the US President in their domestic legal and political fights.
This campaign, led by Eduardo Bolsonaro and supported by figures such as Miller and Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon; It's ranged from Mar-a-Lago dinners to CPAC conferences to White House meetings, even at Trump's inauguration last year when Eduardo met Donald Trump Jr. after attending Vice President J.D. Vance's dinner. He embraced with.
Bannon argued that the left's treatment of the Bolsonaro family was a warning for US conservatives and said, "Those who think politics will get easier in the US have not seen anything yet. This will only get uglier, more partisan and more aggressive."
This personal alliance between the hemisphere's two most powerful political families also reshaped US-Brazil relations.
Trump imposed heavy tariffs on Brazil last year, citing the treatment of Bolsonaro, and sanctioned the Supreme Court judge who banned Bolsonaro from abroad; On the other hand, their ally Milei attended Flávio Bolsonaro's rally in Brazil in July and called Lula da Silva a "thief", after which Brazil recalled its ambassador to Argentina.
