J.D. Vance Used Peanut the Squirrel To Attack Government Overreach. So Why Has ICE Detained Peanut's Owner?

The final stretch of the 2024 campaign cycle saw a new sort of mascot emerge at the 11th hour. Naturally, this was an influencer—in 2026, who else would qualify? He was compact and chipper, his occasional accessorizing difficult to look away from if it crossed your feed. He was a squirrel.

Was. Peanut is no more. His untimely death—after he was euthanized by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)—sparked a Republican rallying cry as voters prepared to decide the presidential election. In October 2024, the government had raided the home of Peanut’s owners, Mark Longo and Daniela Bittner, in response to what officials said were reports of “potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets.” (No one in the United States has ever gotten rabies from a squirrel.)

“The same government that doesn’t care about hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant criminals coming into our country doesn’t want us to have pets,” said J.D. Vance at a rally as he made one of his last pitches to be vice president. “It’s the craziest, the craziest thing.”

What’s perhaps crazier is how that quote would come to take on new meaning. Almost exactly two years later, Bittner was in immigration lockup, on track for potential deportation to Germany, despite being married to Longo, an American citizen.

“I’m begging the world to find an answer as to why this keeps happening to me,” Longo told the Associated Press, referring to what he sees as government overreach repeatedly clawing its way into his life. “One time, you can call it what it is. Two times, it’s now becoming a little bit more of a target.”

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Bittner “chose to overstay her welcome in defiance of our nation’s laws.” The couple, Longo countered, appeared to have made a mistake on one of her forms.

The needless killing of Peanut was perfect for a campaign against government intrusion: a cute, harmless pet that brought joy to thousands euthanized after the government raided his home, as if an animal named “Peanut” were part of a sophisticated fentanyl operation.

Similarly, Bittner’s detention two years later provides a timely retrospective after the GOP’s historic midterm loss. The reasons for the absolute shellacking are, of course, nuanced. But it is perhaps relevant that 58 percent of voters felt the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts had gone too far, according to CBS exit polling. People across the aisle, for instance, almost uniformly support deporting people convicted of violent crimes. But for an alleged paperwork violation? Committed by someone married to an American? Is that making the U.S. safer?

That last question has been on the mind for a while. Peanut’s death was a particularly visceral example—almost easy, as perverse as it sounds—of what happens when government policy is controlled by a busybody spirit. It’s hard to blame Vance for invoking it on the trail. It was right there. He forced voters to ask if Democrats are unable to spot an actual threat when they see one and whether they can be trusted with immense government power. What question does he think Bittner’s detention raises?

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