Daniela Bittner is in ICE custody and could be deported at any minute, according to Mark Longo. Longo said the detention has already sent her through several detention centers and left P’Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary facing uncertainty.
Longo said Bittner has been in federal custody for nearly a month. He said the couple’s nonprofit cares for some 600 animals, including 100 horses, so her detention reaches far beyond one immigration case.
Connecticut paperwork fight
Longo said the issue began with a “minor issue” on immigration paperwork after Bittner came into the country legally on a visa. He said the couple filed immigration paperwork after their marriage later in 2022 in Connecticut, and that he went to Bittner in Germany in 2022 to have her visa situation situated.
Longo said, “She came into this country legally on a visa. We filed the paperwork and stuff and apparently the government is saying we filed the wrong piece of paper.” He also said, “They had asked for additional information, which we provided, and then apparently they sent a letter stating that it was denied because we filed the wrong paperwork, which we never received.”
DHS account and custody moves
A DHS spokesperson said Bittner lawfully entered the country multiple times between May 2021 and November 2022 with permission to stay for a temporary period. The DHS spokesperson said, “She chose to overstay her welcome in defiance of our nation’s laws.” DHS also said, “To be clear, a pending application does not confer legal status in the United States.”
Longo said Bittner was moved from Syracuse to Buffalo to Louisiana and then Texas. He said she wears 24-hour contacts and could not get a new pair for more than two weeks, adding that the delay almost pulled her retinas off her eyeballs.
What Longo says comes next
Longo described her detention as “deplorable conditions” and said Bittner has no criminal history. He also said the couple drove to Elmira airport on Oct. 16 to board a plane to attend a TikTok event when plainclothes officers swarmed them as they got out of the car and refused to identify themselves.
That detention now sits beside the earlier fate of P’Nut, the viral internet squirrel. The Post reported that P’Nut was taken and decapitated by state officials, and Longo said, “This will ruin my life. Like P’Nut was enough for me, and now you’re gonna take away the one symbol that I work for every day, and that’s animal rescue.”
