WASHINGTON — Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., has claimed that his mother was at her office inside of the Earth Trade Center for the duration of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but data attained by NBC News on Wednesday display she was dwelling in Brazil at the time.
The immigration records, unearthed as a result of a Flexibility of Information and facts Act request by genealogical researcher Alex Calzareth and initial described by The Washington Post, show that Santos’ mother, Fatima Caruso Devolder, was admitted to the U.S. in April 2003 and had not been in the country since 1999. She experienced been residing in Rio de Janeiro.
Devolder very last still left New York in 1999 and claimed in 2001 when she was back in Brazil that her green card had been stolen, in accordance to the documents. She later on used for re-entry and was re-admitted into the U.S. in 2003, the records show. Devolder indicated that she was unemployed or retired and that she planned to stay in Woodside, New York, a community in Queens, in accordance to the paperwork received by means of a FOIA ask for.
But even however the documents demonstrate Devolder’s absence from the U.S. from 1999 to 2003, Santos’ congressional marketing campaign website suggests: “George’s mom was in her office environment in the South Tower on Sept. 11, 2001, when the horrific functions of that working day unfolded. She survived the tragic events on September 11th, but she handed absent a handful of many years later on when she lost her fight to cancer.”
Santos’ office environment did not immediately react to a request for comment Wednesday.
In 2021, when he was managing for Congress, Santos claimed in a reply to an account on Twitter that 9/11 claimed his mother’s everyday living. His marketing campaign site says his mother died a several yrs immediately after the attacks she died in 2016.
Calzareth, who’s at first from Nassau County but not Santos’ congressional district, submitted the FOIA requests about Santos’ mother in late December. He explained he in the beginning designed the ask for since he was fascinated in viewing irrespective of whether Devolder was in the U.S. in 1988, when Santos was born. Governing administration information exhibit she was in the nation from the mid-1980s until finally 1999.
Santos has lied about substantially of his track record and résumé, and he is the subject of investigations at the point out, area and federal degrees. In an job interview previous month with the New York Article, he apologized for facets of his biography.
“I’m humiliated and sorry for getting embellished my résumé,” he explained, according to the paper. “I individual up to that. … We do silly items in life.”
Previous 7 days, The Hill claimed that Santos advised reporters, “I have completed very little unethical.”
A escalating selection of GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill are contacting for him to resign. But Home Republicans awarded him slots on two committees after stress arose to avert him from remaining seated on congressional panels.
Garrett Haake contributed.
