'It felt like we were on display, like meat at a butcher shop', Brazilian former model recounts ICE detention and deportation - O GLOBO

Brazilian former model Amanda Ungaro, 41, was deported from the United States by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in October 2025. As previously reported by O GLOBO, she accuses Italian businessman Paolo Zampolli, the father of her son, of using his influence in Washington to trigger her deportation amid a custody dispute over their teenage child. Ungaro and Zampolli were in a relationship for nearly two decades, which ended in 2021. He now serves as a special envoy for global partnerships in the Trump administration, a position created for him by Donald Trump.

In an exclusive interview with O GLOBO, Ungaro described the moment she was arrested and what she witnessed during three and a half months in ICE detention.

“Officers came into our home at six in the morning, pulled me into the hallway in my pajamas, with my face turned to the wall, and took our passports,” she said. “They handcuffed me and my husband in front of my son, Giovanni, who was also taken to the station because he is a minor and I had no one to leave him with.”