Why the US has become a political base for Brazil’s Bolsonaro allies

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Three days after losing Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro arrived in Miami , joining other prominent allies of the Bolsonaro political movement who have sought refuge in the United States while facing legal troubles back home.

The defeated candidate reportedly crossed into Argentina with his wife and two daughters on Tuesday, then boarded a private plane that stopped in Ecuador before landing in South Florida. He left after a Supreme Court order , issued the day after the election, required him to surrender his passports and barred him from leaving Brazil. Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has a long history of legal battles with the Bolsonaro family, issued the order citing a “concrete risk” that the senator would flee.

On Friday, on the American conservative podcast Louder with Crowder, his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro had suggested that Flávio should leave Brazil if he lost to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, citing concerns about the investigations he could face once his Senate term ends.

In a video posted Monday , Flávio Bolsonaro addressed his brother’s comments and promised to comply with the Supreme Court order, citing political persecution. His Senate term ends on January 31, 2027, leaving him out of elected office for the first time in 24 years.

Flávio Bolsonaro is currently under investigation by the country’s highest court for alleged acts of corruption and money laundering.

Upon arriving in the US, he released a three-page statement on Wednesday, declaring himself the “leader of Brazil,” despite losing Sunday’s runoff to Lula. He repeated unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud, said it had not been his intention to leave the country and vowed to lead the Brazilian opposition from the United States.

“I want to make it clear: I did not flee Brazil. I left for Brazil,” he wrote, describing himself as a victim of political persecution and thanking US President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei for their support in his departure plans.

In the United States, Flávio Bolsonaro joins a growing list of prominent figures in the Bolsonaro movement who have relocated there while facing legal trouble in Brazil.

Eduardo, a former congressman, moved to the US in early 2025, saying he was the target of political persecution, and received permanent residency in July. Brazil’s Supreme Court has since sentenced him to four years and two months in prison for coercion, finding that he lobbied US officials to pressure the judges overseeing his father’s coup case. Moraes ordered his arrest this month.

Former intelligence chief and congressman Alexandre Ramagem slipped out of Brazil through Guyana in September 2025, while the Supreme Court was still trying him for his role in the plot to overturn the 2022 election, and arrived in the US the day he was convicted. US immigration authorities detained him in Florida in April and released him two days later. His allies say he has applied for asylum.

Conservative commentators Allan dos Santos and Paulo Figueiredo have also built platforms in the US while facing legal disputes in Brazil.

Their cases differ, but together they suggest that the US has become more than a refuge for Bolsonaro allies. It is also a political base, with ideological allies, access to influential conservatives and a network of Brazilian supporters.

“Exile is no longer isolation,” said Teresa Cristina Schneider Marques, a political scientist at PUCRS (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul), who researches “Bolsonarismo” in the US. “With social media and the media, it has become a strategy for international and transnational projection.”

The US is home to the largest Brazilian community abroad, with about two million people , according to estimates from Brazil’s Foreign Ministry. That community has historically leaned conservative. Brazilian voters in the US backed the right-wing candidate in the 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 runoffs, according to Brazilian electoral data. This year they backed Flávio Bolsonaro, who won nearly 63% of their valid votes in Sunday’s runoff.

The ties go beyond the ballot box. Connections between Brazilian conservative elites and American political figures deepened during the overlapping presidencies of Jair Bolsonaro — Flávio’s father — and Trump, whose movements share nationalist and socially conservative positions.

After Jair Bolsonaro lost the 2022 election, thousands of his supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on January 8, 2023, in an attack that drew comparisons to the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol. As legal pressure mounted, several prominent figures in his movement left for the United States.

Since then, Marques said, the movement has worked to “domesticate the cause” on three fronts, persuading American society to adopt it as its own.

The first is Washington, where allies have sought to influence US policy toward Brazil. The second is the media: Eduardo Bolsonaro and Figueiredo, among others, have used American podcasts, conservative outlets and social media to argue that Brazil’s judiciary is persecuting the right.

The third is the Brazilian diaspora.

“The diaspora plays an important role in spreading narratives, but also in translating them,” Marques said, “not just in English, but also adapting political messages so they resonate with American audiences.”

Groups such as Yes Brasil in Florida and the Congresso Conservador Brasileiro in Massachusetts bring together supporters, Brazilian politicians and the immigrant community, and can act as intermediaries with American conservative circles.

The result is a division of labor: prominent figures gain access to institutions and influential allies, while ordinary supporters spread the message among the Americans and Brazilians around them.

The ultimate aim is to win American support and use it to pressure Brazilian institutions, a tactic scholars call the “boomerang effect” — in which political movements turn to international allies to influence decisions at home.

Trump has repeatedly criticized Brazil’s judiciary over its treatment of Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for the coup plot. That support has had concrete consequences. Last year, Trump imposed tariffs of up to 50% on Brazilian products, explicitly citing Jair Bolsonaro’s prosecution, and his administration sanctioned Brazilian judicial authorities.

More recently, a Reuters investigation published ahead of Sunday’s runoff election, described efforts by two senior State Department officials to help the Bolsonaro family return to power, including measures intended to pressure Lula’s government.

Trump has questioned the legitimacy of Brazil’s election, without providing evidence of fraud, pointing to a last-minute Supreme Court decision to extend voting by two hours, until 7 p.m., following reports of transportation problems. At a campaign rally in Texas on Tuesday, Trump also compared Brazil’s election to his longstanding allegations of electoral cheating by Democrats.

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

Trump confirmed Wednesday that the US allowed Flávio Bolsonaro to enter the country. “Well, I’m not going to make a comment about that, but I know that we gave him a pass to come into the country, so we’ll see,” Trump told reporters before departing for Ohio.

A Trump adviser had told CNN Tuesday that the president had approved allowing Flávio Bolsonaro into the United States, and US officials confirmed that the administration would issue visas to the senator and his family.

It is unclear what visas they received or whether Flávio Bolsonaro will seek asylum. Permission to enter does not mean someone qualifies for asylum or is shielded from extradition.

Marques argued that, for Trump, welcoming Bolsonaro allies has political value: their claims of persecution fit a narrative, shared across the global right, that portrays leftist governments as authoritarian.

Granting asylum implicitly accuses another country of persecution, she noted.

But Marques said that narrative is harder to sell about Brazil than about Venezuela or Cuba. “Lula ends up being a stone in the shoe of the global right,” she said. “Lula is respected abroad and submitted to the courts when he was jailed in 2018, which makes him hard to cast as an authoritarian.”

Amanda Perobelli/Reuters

His reelection has also energized left-wing leaders abroad, who see his comeback victory as a possible turning point after a series of right-wing electoral gains. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, for instance, celebrated Lula’s win as an inspiration ahead of Spain’s November 29 election, declaring: “What happened in Brazil will happen in Spain. The comeback of global progressivism has just begun.”

Marques suggested that a current US welcome carries less weight than it once did. “It would be one thing for the Obama administration to receive someone from Brazil as persecuted. It’s another for the Donald Trump administration.”

Nor is that protection necessarily permanent; a successive US administration might take a different view of the matter than Trump does.

Flávio received nearly 60 million votes in Sunday’s runoff, a sign of the right’s continued strength, and his sudden departure caught his own party off guard.

Rogério Marinho, the senator who coordinated Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign, said Tuesday that party leaders had not been told of his travel plans.

With Jair Bolsonaro serving his sentence under house arrest and Flávio and Eduardo abroad, some on the right are already looking to alternatives.

“I think it’s a somewhat risky move, particularly the way Flávio did it,” Marques said. She sees exile as a deliberate political strategy, but unlike Eduardo, who presented his move as a political choice, Flávio Bolsonaro left immediately after a court order restricting his travel, feeding the perception that he fled to avoid prosecution. “The way it was done raised the costs of that strategy,” she said.

The episode could give other conservative leaders an opening to distance themselves from the family, she said, though Brazil’s right has repeatedly struggled to build an identity independent of Jair Bolsonaro. “The big question now is how long the right will allow itself to remain tied to Bolsonarismo.”

She also finds the persecution narrative hard to sustain at home, since the movement’s allies won a large share of Congress this month.

Having Flávio and Eduardo in the US could strengthen the family’s international influence. But it also presents a striking paradox: the movement’s three most prominent figures are trying to shape Brazil’s political future while two face legal risks if they return to the country, and the third, Jair Bolsonaro, remains under house arrest.

Eva Marie Uzcategui/Reuters

Marques expects the fight to play out on the international stage. Brazil could seek Flávio Bolsonaro’s extradition, she said, setting up a prolonged dispute over whether he is a fugitive or a dissident, along the lines of the Julian Assange or Edward Snowden cases.

“Just as Bolsonarismo is trying to make this boomerang effect work with the right, the left will do the same,” she said. “Now the question is which way it will come back.”

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在周日输掉巴西总统大选三天后，参议员弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗抵达迈阿密，与博尔索纳罗政治运动的其他一些著名盟友一起，在美国寻求庇护，以应对在巴西国内面临的法律问题。

据报道，这位落败的候选人周二携妻子和两个女儿进入阿根廷，随后登上了一架私人飞机，经停厄瓜多尔后抵达南佛罗里达州。此前，最高法院在选举次日下令要求他交出护照并禁止其离开巴西。大法官亚历山大·德·莫赖斯与博索纳罗家族有着长期的法律纠纷，他发布该命令时称存在这位参议员潜逃的“切实风险”。

周五，在克劳德主持的美国保守派播客节目《Louder》中，他的兄弟爱德华多·博尔索纳罗建议，如果弗拉维奥败给路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦总统，他应该离开巴西，理由是担心弗拉维奥的参议院任期结束后可能会面临调查。

在周一发布的一段视频中，弗拉维奥·博索纳罗回应了他哥哥的言论，并承诺将遵守最高法院的命令，理由是他受到了政治迫害。他的参议员任期将于2027年1月31日结束，这将是他24年来首次卸任公职。

弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗目前正因涉嫌腐败和洗钱行为接受该国最高法院的调查。

抵达美国后，他于周三发表了一份三页的声明，宣布自己是“巴西领导人”，尽管他在周日的决选中输给了卢拉。他再次提出未经证实的选举舞弊指控，声称自己原本无意离开巴西，并誓言要从美国领导巴西反对派。

“我想澄清一点：我没有逃离巴西。我是去巴西的，”他写道，并称自己是政治迫害的受害者，同时感谢美国总统唐纳德·特朗普和阿根廷总统哈维尔·米莱对他的离境计划的支持。

在美国，弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗加入了博尔索纳罗运动中越来越多的知名人士的行列，这些人在巴西面临法律问题时移居到了美国。

前国会议员爱德华多于2025年初移居美国，声称自己是政治迫害的目标，并于7月获得永久居留权。巴西最高法院随后以胁迫罪判处他四年零两个月监禁，认定他游说美国官员向审理其父政变案的法官施压。莫赖斯本月下令将其逮捕。

前情报局长兼国会议员亚历山大·拉马根于2025年9月经由圭亚那离开巴西，当时最高法院仍在审理他参与2022年大选舞弊案的案件，并在他被定罪当天抵达美国。美国移民局于4月在佛罗里达州将其拘留，两天后释放。他的盟友称他已申请庇护。

保守派评论员艾伦·多斯·桑托斯和保罗·菲格雷多在美国也建立了影响力，同时在巴西面临法律纠纷。

虽然他们的案例各不相同，但共同表明，美国已不仅仅是博索纳罗盟友的避难所，更是一个政治基地，拥有意识形态上的盟友、接触有影响力的保守派人士的渠道以及巴西支持者网络。

“流亡不再意味着孤立，”里约热内卢天主教大学（PUCRS）政治学家特蕾莎·克里斯蒂娜·施耐德·马克斯说道，她研究的是美国的“博尔索纳主义”。“借助社交媒体和媒体，流亡已成为一种国际和跨国宣传的策略。”

据巴西外交部估计，美国拥有全球最大的巴西侨民群体，约有两百万人。该群体历来倾向于保守派。巴西选举数据显示，在美巴西选民在2010年、2014年、2018年和2022年的总统选举第二轮投票中均支持右翼候选人。今年，他们支持弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗，他在周日的第二轮投票中赢得了近63%的有效选票。

这种联系远不止于投票箱。在雅伊尔·博索纳罗（弗拉维奥的父亲）和特朗普执政时期，巴西保守派精英与美国政治人物之间的联系日益加深，因为他们的运动都具有民族主义和社会保守主义立场。

在雅伊尔·博索纳罗2022年大选落败后，他的数千名支持者于2023年1月8日冲击了巴西国会大厦、最高法院和总统府，此次袭击事件与2021年1月6日美国国会大厦遭袭事件有相似之处。随着法律压力不断增加，他领导的运动中的几位重要人物前往美国。

马克斯说，从那时起，该运动就致力于在三个方面“使这项事业本土化”，说服美国社会将其视为自己的事业。

首先是华盛顿，其盟友一直试图影响美国对巴西的政策。其次是媒体：包括爱德华多·博索纳罗和菲格雷多在内的许多人利用美国播客、保守派媒体和社交媒体，声称巴西司法系统正在迫害右翼人士。

第三类是巴西侨民。

“侨民在传播叙事方面发挥着重要作用，而且在翻译叙事方面也发挥着重要作用，”马克斯说，“不仅是翻译成英语，还要调整政治信息，使其能够引起美国观众的共鸣。”

佛罗里达州的“Yes Brasil”和马萨诸塞州的“Congresso Conservador Brasileiro”等团体将支持者、巴西政界人士和移民社区聚集在一起，并可以充当与美国保守派圈子的中间人。

其结果是劳动分工：知名人士得以接触机构和有影响力的盟友，而普通支持者则在周围的美国人和巴西人中传播信息。

最终目标是赢得美国的支持，并利用这种支持向巴西机构施压，学者们将这种策略称为“回旋镖效应”——即政治运动转向国际盟友以影响国内决策。

特朗普曾多次批评巴西司法系统对待博索纳罗的方式，博索纳罗因策划政变被判处27年以上监禁。这种支持已产生切实后果。去年，特朗普对巴西产品加征高达50%的关税，明确以博索纳罗的起诉为由，其政府还对巴西司法机构进行了制裁。

最近，路透社在周日决选前发表的一项调查报道，描述了两位国务院高级官员为帮助博索纳罗家族重返权力所做的努力，包括旨在向卢拉政府施压的措施。

特朗普质疑巴西大选的合法性，但并未提供任何舞弊证据。他指出，最高法院在最后一刻决定将投票时间延长两小时至晚上7点，此前有报道称巴西出现了交通问题。周二在德克萨斯州的一次竞选集会上，特朗普还将巴西大选与他长期以来对民主党选举舞弊的指控相提并论。

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

特朗普周三证实，美国允许弗拉维奥·博索纳罗入境。“嗯，我对此不予置评，但我知道我们给了他入境通行证，所以我们拭目以待，”特朗普在前往俄亥俄州前告诉记者。

特朗普的一位顾问周二告诉 CNN，总统已批准弗拉维奥·博索纳罗入境美国，美国官员也证实，政府将向这位参议员及其家人发放签证。

目前尚不清楚他们获得了何种签证，也不清楚弗拉维奥·博索纳罗是否会寻求庇护。获准入境并不意味着某人符合庇护资格或免于引渡。

马克斯认为，对特朗普而言，欢迎博索纳罗的盟友具有政治价值：他们声称遭受迫害的说法符合全球右翼所共享的一种叙事，即把左翼政府描绘成专制政府。

她指出，给予庇护实际上等于指责另一个国家进行迫害。

但马克斯表示，这种说法在巴西比在委内瑞拉或古巴更难被接受。“卢拉最终成了全球右翼的绊脚石，”她说。“卢拉在国外受人尊敬，2018年入狱时也服从了法庭，这使得他很难被描绘成一个独裁者。”

阿曼达·佩罗贝利/路透社

他的连任也鼓舞了海外左翼领导人，他们将他的胜利视为右翼势力一系列选举胜利后的一个转折点。例如，西班牙首相佩德罗·桑切斯在11月29日西班牙大选前夕，盛赞卢拉的胜利，称其鼓舞人心，并宣称：“巴西发生的事也会在西班牙发生。全球进步主义的复兴才刚刚开始。”

马克斯认为，如今美国对巴西人的欢迎力度不如以往。“奥巴马政府接收一位遭受迫害的巴西人是一回事，特朗普政府则是另一回事。”

这种保护也未必是永久性的；下一届美国政府可能会对此事持与特朗普不同的观点。

弗拉维奥在周日的决选中获得了近 6000 万张选票，这表明右翼势力依然强大，而他的突然退出让他的政党措手不及。

负责协调弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗竞选活动的参议员罗杰里奥·马里尼奥周二表示，党内领导人并未被告知他的出行计划。

由于雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗正在家中服刑，弗拉维奥和爱德华多则身在国外，一些右翼人士已经在寻找替代方案。

“我认为这步棋走得有点冒险，尤其是弗拉维奥采取的方式，”马克斯说道。她认为流亡是一种深思熟虑的政治策略，但与爱德华多将流亡行为标榜为政治选择不同，弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗在法院下达限制其出行的命令后立即离开，这加深了人们对他为逃避起诉而逃亡的看法。“他采取的方式提高了这一策略的代价，”她说道。

她表示，这一事件或许会给其他保守派领导人一个与博尔索纳罗家族划清界限的机会，尽管巴西右翼一直难以建立独立于博尔索纳罗的身份认同。“现在最大的问题是，右翼究竟还能与博尔索纳罗主义纠缠多久。”

她还发现，在国内，这种迫害叙事很难站得住脚，因为该运动的盟友本月赢得了国会的大部分席位。

弗拉维奥和爱德华多身在美国可能会增强博索纳罗家族的国际影响力。但这同时也带来了一个引人注目的悖论：该运动的三位最杰出人物正试图塑造巴西的政治未来，但其中两人如果返回巴西将面临法律风险，而第三位人物雅伊尔·博索纳罗仍然被软禁在家。

伊娃·玛丽·乌兹卡特吉/路透社

马克斯预计这场斗争将在国际舞台上展开。她说，巴西可能会寻求引渡弗拉维奥·博索纳罗，从而引发一场旷日持久的争论，争论的焦点在于他究竟是逃犯还是异见人士，就像朱利安·阿桑奇或爱德华·斯诺登的案件一样。

“正如博索纳主义试图利用这种反弹效应对右翼产生影响一样，左翼也会这样做，”她说。“现在的问题是，这种反弹会朝哪个方向发展。”