A Brazilian woman with ties too White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is currently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising questions about immigration enforcement priorities and the potential for political influence in individual cases. Bruna Caroline Ferreira, the mother of Leavitt’s nephew, was taken into custody earlier this month in Massachusetts and is being held in Louisiana, according to reports from BBC News Brasil. The case highlights the increasing number of Brazilian nationals facing U.S. immigration challenges and comes amid a period of heightened immigration enforcement.
Fuente de la imagen, Cortesía familia Ferreira
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- Autor, Thais Carrança
- Título del autor, BBC News Brasil
A Brazilian woman has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this month in Revere, Massachusetts, and is currently held at a facility in Louisiana.
The case is one of many involving Brazilians arrested amid a tightening of U.S. immigration policy under the second term of former President Donald Trump. However, it has drawn attention due to Ferreira’s familial connection to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Ferreira is the mother of Leavitt’s 11-year-old nephew and previously had a relationship with her brother, Michael Leavitt.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, stated that Ferreira has a “prior arrest for assault” and entered the U.S. as a minor on a tourist visa that required her to leave the country in 1999.
“Under the Trump administration and Secretary (Kristi) Noem, all individuals in the United States illegally are subject to deportation,” McLaughlin said, according to WBUR.
Ferreira’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said he is unaware of any charges against his client and described the detention as “illegal.”
“To my knowledge, she never received an arrest warrant. I don’t even know if they knew who she was. We’re going to find out the truth,” Pomerleau said, adding that Ferreira had not been able to regularize her immigration status and is currently in the process of applying for permanent residency in the U.S.
Leavitt declined to comment on the detention.
Fuente de la imagen, Getty Images
A government representative confirmed the relationship between Ferreira, Michael Leavitt, and the White House Press Secretary, but stated that “Karoline had no involvement in this matter.”
Ferreira’s sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, has launched a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to help cover the legal expenses related to her sister’s detention.
“Bruna came to the U.S. with our parents in December 1998, as a child, entering with a visa,” Rodrigues wrote on the website.
“Since then, she has always done everything possible to build an honest, stable, and correct life. She has always maintained her legal status through DACA, met all the requirements, and never stopped doing the right thing,” she added.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, created in 2012 during the Obama administration, provides temporary residency and work permits – including a Social Security number – to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
Despite this legal protection, thousands of DACA recipients have been detained in immigration enforcement operations during the Trump administration.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, told the Associated Press that individuals “claiming to be DACA recipients are not automatically protected from deportation.”
“DACA does not confer any legal status in this country,” she warned.
ICE reported detaining more than 65,000 immigrants as of November 15, a figure that represents an increase compared to the period before the U.S. government shutdown, when fewer than 60,000 people were in custody, according to CBS News, a BBC partner in the U.S.
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