Argentina has granted asylum to a Brazilian fugitive convicted for his role in the 2023 pro-Bolsonaro riots, a decision that analysts say could impact Brazil’s upcoming presidential election.
A week after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, took office, hundreds of people ransacked Brazil’s Congress building, presidential palace and Supreme Court on January 8, 2023, in an attempt to reverse former President Jair Bolsonaro’s election defeat. Investigators later concluded that the attacks were the culmination of a broader plot aimed at staging a coup.
In addition to Bolsonaro and members of his inner circle, who were convicted for their role in the plot, hundreds of rioters received sentences of up to 17 years in prison for vandalism and insurrection. Dozens of people fled to Argentina after Javier Milei, a right-wing libertarian, took office there in December 2023.
In 2024, Brazil requested the extradition of 61 of its citizens. Argentine federal police arrested five of them and, in December, a federal judge ordered their extradition.
But this week, one of the Brazilians, Joel Borges Correa, 47, was informed that Argentina’s refugee commission (Conare), which reports to the Ministry of Security, ruled that he should be granted asylum.
Borges Correa had requested asylum in 2024, one of the 196 Brazilians who requested refugee status in Argentina that year, according to official data. In his testimony, he said that he had gone to government buildings carrying a Brazilian flag to protest against “Lula’s projects in favor of abortion and the legalization of drugs,” policies that have not been enacted. He was arrested inside the Planalto presidential palace, the president’s official workplace, and later sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison.
In April 2024, trying to avoid arrest, Borges Correa cut off his ankle monitor and drove to the Argentine border with three other convicted fugitives. Conare concluded that Borges Correa faced discrimination and persecution due to his political opinions, which he said could be “inferred from his participation in the January 8 mobilization,” and that “the Brazilian state is the main persecuting agent.”
“There is a very obvious human rights issue, an issue of political persecution,” said Pedro Gradín, Borges Correa’s lawyer. “With the asylum granted he will regularize his immigration status. Now they must release him and remove the ankle monitor so he can live his life like any other citizen.”
The decision suggests that other fugitives will be successful in their asylum applications.
In a video published on social networks, national deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro – one of Jair Bolsonaro’s sons – celebrated the ruling as a “victory for freedom” and thanked Milei.
“It is impossible that these people could have carried out a coup d’état without weapons, without anything, on a Sunday in January, when everyone knows it was a vacation in Brazil,” he said, spuriously claiming that his father, who fled the country to avoid handing over power to Lula, had been at Disney World.
The decision is understood to have come as a surprise to Brazilian authorities.
“The Milei administration is starting to get involved in Brazil’s elections,” said a Brazilian government source who asked not to be identified.
“Brazil is about to begin its electoral campaign, and this year’s elections will be more difficult for President Lula than it seemed a few months ago,” said Maurício Santoro, a political scientist and professor of international relations. Brazil’s presidential election is in October and opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro – another son of the former president – is currently rising in the polls.
“There is a real possibility that (Bolsonaro) could win. And that changes the political calculations of the Milei government.”
Santoro added that, with conservative leaders recently elected in neighboring countries, Milei may see an opportunity to “cause a political problem for Lula.”
Santoro said the Brazilian opposition, which has pushed for an amnesty for Bolsonaro and others involved in the Jan. 8 riots, can now point to Borges Correa’s asylum case as proof that the events were not a coup attempt.
“I think it will become an important issue for the opposition during the election campaign,” he said.
