T he Department of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump has put Daniela Bittner , one of the late Peanut the Squirrel’s owners, in an immigration jail , NBC News reported. She is now facing possible deportation to Germany.
Because she “chose to overstay her welcome in defiance of our nation’s laws, dHS said in a statement that Bittner was arrested. I mmigration officers arrested Bittner in mid-October at a small airport near New York’s border with Pennsylvania.
Bittner, 30, was nabbed by ICE because she is an undocumented German national who “overstayed her welcome,” the Department of Homeland Security said, per the New York Post.
She had been living with her husband at the upstate Pine City animal sanctuary that they ran. The statement added that a person who is now involved in the confiscation investigation had been bitten by Peanut. “On October 15, 2026, ICE arrested Daniela Bittner, an illegal alien from Germany, at the Elmira Corning Regional Airport.
Bittner, a social media model who also posted on OnlyFans, was taken into custody last month after entering the United legally several years ago, according to DHS. She will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings and will receive due process,” a DHS spokesperson said, according to the outlet. She is now housed in Texas, her husband Mark Longo said, per NBC News. He said that conditions in the lockups are “deplorable” and went on to blame her detention on an immigration paperwork mix-up. “They put Peanut on a pedestal, won their election and threw him off that pedestal immediately,” Longo said. Peanut, a social media star, was euthanised to test for rabies, according to a statement from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Chemung County Department of Health.
Since then, Bittner has been moved through several immigration lockups.
