In June 2025, a custody fight in Miami spilled into the federal immigration system, ending with a mother deported and a lot of people asking how much pull a Trump ally really has. According to reporting, immigration agents in Miami took a woman into ICE custody and ultimately removed her from the country after a longtime associate of Donald Trump pressed the agency for help in the middle of a dispute over their child. At the center is a senior ICE official who allegedly phoned the agency's Miami office so the woman could be picked up before she had a chance to post bail.
The core allegation
According to The New York Times, Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who now serves in the Trump administration as the United States special representative for global partnerships, contacted immigration officials to ask whether his ex-girlfriend, Amanda Ungaro, could be detained while he pursued custody of their son. Records and a person familiar with the communications told the Times that Zampolli sought her detention in order to gain leverage in that ongoing custody battle.
How the request unfolded
As reported by The Daily Beast, senior ICE adviser David Venturella then called the agency's Miami office and flagged Ungaro for pick-up so agents would take her into federal custody before she could be released on bail from a local jail. The Daily Beast reports that Ungaro was transferred into ICE custody and later removed from the United States. The outlet notes that the Department of Homeland Security told reporters that any suggestion her arrest and removal were politically motivated was "FALSE."
ICE adviser’s ties and agency context
Venturella's involvement is drawing extra scrutiny because of his past work for the private prison company GEO Group and his reported role in shaping ICE's detention expansion plans. Wired reported that metadata on internal planning documents tied him to the Detention Re-engineering Initiative, a blueprint for ramping up immigration detention capacity. Local coverage also captured him leaving a January ICE site visit at a potential warehouse facility in Florida, a walk-through that ClickOrlando reported ICE was eyeing as a possible immigrant detention center.
Legal and political questions
The episode has revived questions that have been simmering around ICE for years: how insulated are enforcement decisions from personal connections and private requests, and where exactly is the line between casework and favoritism. Watchdogs and some lawmakers worry that any perception of special access, especially involving a Trump associate and an official linked to private-prison interests, undercuts confidence in an already controversial system.
For Miami residents and immigration advocates, the case is a stark example of how federal enforcement power, local jail systems and personal influence can collide in very real, very high-stakes ways. It may also fuel new calls for formal oversight or an inspector general review. This story is still developing, and the response from agencies, lawmakers and watchdog groups will help determine whether this becomes a one-off scandal or a broader test of how immigration enforcement power is wielded.
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