Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has applied for a six-month tourist visa in the United States. This was confirmed by the law firm AG Immigration. The Financial Times reported first, citing Bolsonaro’s immigration attorney Felipe Alexandre. The request suggests that the ex-president may not have any intention of returning to Brazil any time soon.
Bolsonaro had left the country on December 30, just before his rival Lula da Silva’s inauguration, and traveled to Florida. A little later, thousands of his supporters stormed the main government buildings in the capital, Brasília, demanding that Lula’s election be annulled.
Investigations are currently underway against Bolsonaro because of the riots. The Attorney General accuses him of “incitement and intellectual authorship”. This is just one of several investigations into the former president that could pose legal problems for him if he returns home.
Bolsonaro is believed to have entered the United States on an A-1 visa reserved for incumbent heads of state. If so, he would have 30 days from the end of his term as President to leave the United States. Meanwhile, experts are speculating about a possible return of Bolsonaro to Brazil and politics.
Political analyst Mario Sergio Lima says Bolsonaro’s calculation seems to be to distance himself from his violent supporters in order to one day return to the top of the opposition. Bolsonaro was last in a house outside of Orlando, Florida. Videos showed him taking photos with trailers and strolling through a supermarket.
After the unrest in the Brazilian capital, a group of 46 Democratic US lawmakers wrote a letter to President Joe Biden demanding that Bolsonaro’s visa be revoked. “The United States must not harbor him or any other authoritarian force that opposes democratic institutions with such violence,” they wrote.
