US to grant visas to Brazil’s Flávio Bolsonaro, family after election loss to Lula

The United States will grant visas to Brazil’s Flávio Bolsonaro and his family following his weekend election defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a senior State Department official has said, The Associated Press reports.

Speaking on condition of anonymity due to visa privacy laws, the official said, “the State Department will issue visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States.”

Bolsonaro, who had President Donald Trump’s tacit support, is under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion and had been ordered to surrender his passports. Lula said on Tuesday that Bolsonaro had left Brazil, though he did not know his precise whereabouts.

Trump said Bolsonaro and his family were “fine people” and described the election as “terrible”, after suggesting without evidence that it was “rigged”. He said he had heard Bolsonaro was in Argentina, but Argentina’s Ministry of Security denied he had entered the country.

Bolsonaro has refused to concede, making unsubstantiated fraud allegations. Lula won by a margin of 4.4 million votes.