US deputies Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joaquin Castro, affiliated with Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, asked in Twitter posts that Jair Bolsonaro (PL) leave the United States, citing attacks on democracy undertaken by supporters of the former president of Brazil in Brasilia this Sunday (8).
Bolsonaro left Brazil on December 30, before the end of his term. Breaking a democratic tradition, he decided not to hand over the banner to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and settled in the Orlando area, close to the Disney parks.
According to Gustavo Ferraz de Campos Monaco, professor of private international law at the USP Faculty of Law, two paths could result in the compulsory departure of the US politician: deportation and extradition.
The extradition process depends on different variables. Monaco explains that it must first be requested by the Brazilian Judiciary and then forwarded by the federal government to the American — who may or may not accept it.
Extradition can only happen if there is a specific agreement between the two countries involved, which is the case with Brazil and the USA, and it depends on factors such as reciprocity of penalties, explains the professor.
Deportation, in turn, is a faster mechanism and depends exclusively on the will of the State in which the former president is now located. In this case, the decision does not need to be anchored in any premise or assumption, according to Monaco. Following this hypothesis, if he used his diplomatic passport to enter the US, the former president would have 72 hours to leave the country.
It is also necessary to consider that both processes, in the case of a former president like Bolsonaro, could bring diplomatic wear and tear to Washington.
New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on her Twitter account that the US should stop “granting Bolsonaro refuge” in Florida.
“About two years after the US Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad trying to do the same in Brazil,” she said.
The message was published after the invasion of the Esplanada dos Ministérios, in BrasÃlia, this Sunday afternoon (8). The coup plotters invaded areas of the National Congress, the Planalto and the STF (Federal Supreme Court), spread acts of vandalism and depredation and clashed with the Military Police.
A message similar to that of AOC was published by Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro, from Texas, also on the social network. In it, the deputy supports the Brazilian government and states that “Bolsonaro should not receive refuge in Florida, where he hides from responsibility for his crimes”. The former president is the target of investigations, but has not been formally denounced in the Brazilian courts.
“Domestic terrorists and fascists cannot use Trump’s playbook to undermine democracy,” Castro said.
The American congressmen were just two of the many politicians who compared this Sunday’s acts in BrasÃlia with what happened in Washington, coincidentally, two years ago.
On January 6, 2021, the invasion of the Capitol was triggered by a speech by then-President Donald Trump, prompting protesters to invade the US Legislature building, in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election —the republican and his followers maintain until today the lying speech that the election was rigged.
The biggest recent attack on American democracy was classified by many as an attempted coup d’état and became the target of a series of investigations, by the Department of Justice, the FBI and Congress itself. The attack resulted in the death of five people, including a policeman.
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