WASHINGTON – Rep. George Santos, RN.Y., claimed his mother was in her office inside the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but records obtained by NBC News Wednesday show she was living in Brazil in the hour.
The immigration records, discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request by genealogical researcher Alex Calzareth and first reported by the washington postshow that Santos’ mother, Fátima Caruso Devolder, was admitted to the US in April 2003 and had not been in the country since 1999. She lived in Rio de Janeiro.
Devolder last left New York in 1999 and claimed in 2001, when he was back in Brazil, that his green card was stolen, records show. She later applied for her re-entry and was readmitted to the US in 2003, records show. Devolder indicated that she was either unemployed or retired and that she planned to live in Woodside, NY, a neighborhood in Queens, according to documents obtained through a FOIA request.
But despite records showing Devolder’s absence from the United States between 1999 and 2003, Santos Congress campaign website reads: “George’s mother was in her office in the South Tower on September 11, 2001, when the horrifying events of that day unfolded. She survived the tragic events of 9/11, but passed away a few years later when she lost her battle with cancer.»
Santos’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
In 2021, when he was running for Congress, Santos claimed in a reply to a Twitter account that on 9/11 he took the life of his mother. His campaign website says his mother died a few years after the attacks; she died in 2016.
Calzareth, who is originally from Nassau County but not from Santos’s congressional district, filed the FOIA requests on Santos’ mother in late December 2022. He said he initially made the request because he was interested to see if Devolder was in the US in 1988, when Santos was born. Government records show that she was in the country from the mid-1980s until 1999.
The congressman has lied about much of his background and resume and is the subject of investigations at the state, local and federal levels. In an interview last month with the new york post officeapologized for aspects of his biography.
«I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry I embellished my resume,» he said, according to the newspaper. “I recognize that. … We do stupid things in life.”
Last week, The Hill reported that Santos told reporters«I have not done anything unethical.»
A growing number of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are now calling for his resignation. But House Republicans gave him seats on two committees after they pressured him to keep him from sitting on congressional panels.
Garrett Haake contributed.