Gisele Fetterman’s X and Instagram profiles are now inactive weeks after she spoke against ICE
The social media accounts of Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the wife of Sen. John Fetterman, are no longer active. She recently posted relating to undocumented immigrants under Trump's administration.
Gisele Barreto Fetterman‘s social media accounts have been taken down after she spoke out about ICE earlier this year. Her X and Instagram accounts were both inactive as of Thursday morning.
It’s unclear what date the two accounts were removed from the platforms, but she did use her X account to criticize the Trump administration a little more than a month ago. Her Facebook account has not been deactivated though her last public post was in June.
Barreto Fetterman, who formerly lived undocumented in the U.S. for more than a decade after emigrating from Brazil, posted about the emotional toll caused by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other cities.
“Every day carried the same uncertainty and fear lived in my body — a tight chest, shallow breaths, racing heart,” she said in a post on X in late January, the day after an Border Patrol agent fatally shot civilian Alex Pretti. In the same month, an ICE agent fatally shot civilian Renee Good and the agency detained 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos.
“What I thought was my private, chronic dread has now become a shared national wound," she added. “This now-daily violence is not ‘law and order.’ It is terror inflicted on people who contribute, love, and build their lives here. It’s devastatingly cruel and unAmerican.”
Giselle’s post preceded a statement from her husband, Sen. John Fetterman, calling for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired in the wake of Pretti’s killing by a Border Patrol agent.
That same week Fetterman joined fellow Democrats in blocking DHS funding in an effort to force reforms to immigration enforcement, but he has since spoken out against a proposal to prohibit ICE agents from masking while they perform their duties.
The senator’s office did not comment Thursday about his wife’s social media hiatus.
Fetterman has faced pushback online for aligning with Trump and being at odds with his party on certain issues.
After Fetterman stood out among Democrats for shaking Trump’s hand at the State of the Union last week, U.S. Rep. Brendon Boyle derided him as “Trump’s favorite Democrat” in a post on X. The senator in turn criticized his fellow Democrats for not standing to applaud at various moments through Trump’s marathon speech that he believed should have had bipartisan support.
Fetterman has been vocal about the negative impacts social media has had on him and has advocated for mental health warnings on social media platforms.
This week, Fetterman was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against advancing a war powers resolution that would have barred Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran without congressional approval.
The Pennsylvanian has contended that military action is necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and has previously urged Israel and the U.S. to bomb the country.
While Fetterman has touted his ability to work across the aisle, a recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 62% of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania disapprove of how Fetterman is handling his job (eight points higher than percentage of Democrat who disapprove of Republican Dave McCormick).
Barreto Fetterman has temporarily deactivated her online accounts before.
She said in January 2024 that she had recently taken her social media down because she was “bored with it” and it “wasn’t adding anything to my life.” She was subjected to negative comments on social media over her husband’s views, Newsweek reported.
She previously posted in November 2023 that she was “3 weeks into a social media break that may last another month or forever,” according to news reports.
She also said in at the time that “treating someone as simply someone’s spouse is insulting and minimizing ... did you know male spouses don’t get treated this way?”
At that point, the senator had been facing pushback for his comments about the war in Gaza and his staunch support of Israel following the country’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 11, 2023 attack.
Barreto Fetterman published a book last year called “Radical Tenderness: The Value of Vulnerability in an Often Unkind World.” She said in an interview in about the book on WHYY that she considers herself a “softie.”
Barreto Fetterman is also a firefighter and runs a “free store” in Braddock, the Allegheny County town where husband previously served as mayor. She said in the WHYY interview “every single day is a heartbreak” under Trump’s immigration crackdown.