Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has applied for a six-month visitor visa to the US, indicating that he does not intend to return immediately to his home country, where legal problems await him.

This statement was first reported by the Financial Times, citing Bolsonaro’s lawyer Felipe Alexander. Contacting the Associated Press, law firm AG Immigration confirmed the report.

Bolsonaro left Brazil for Florida on December 30, two days before the inauguration of his left rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The ceremony passed without incident, but a week later, thousands of Bolsonaro’s hardliners stormed the capital and destroyed top government buildings, demanding Lula’s election be cancelled.

Bolsonaro is being investigated as to whether he had any role in instigating this uprising. This is just one of many investigations into the former president that create a legal “headache” for his eventual return and could make him unable to run for president.

For the first time in his more than thirty years of political career as an MP and then President, he no longer enjoys the special legal protection that any trial in the Supreme Court requires.

It is widely believed, although not confirmed, that Bolsonaro entered the US on an A-1 visa reserved for sitting heads of state. If so, he will have 30 days after the end of his presidential term to either leave the US or change his status with the Department of Homeland Security.

However, after the unrest in the Brazilian capital, a group of 46 Democratic MPs sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to revoke Bolsonaro’s visa.

“The United States should not grant asylum to him or any autocrat who inspired such violence against democratic institutions,” they wrote.

Bolsonaro’s son, himself a senator, told reporters at an event this weekend that he was not sure when his father would return to Brazil.

“It might be tomorrow, it might be in six months, it might never come back. I dont know. He relaxes,” said Flavio Bolsonaro.

Asked if Bolsonaro filed a request for documents or assistance with visa procedures, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry referred the Associated Press to the US authorities. The USCIS sent an agency to the State Department, which has repeatedly refused to comment on questions about Bolsonaro’s US visa status.

Source: Associated Press.