White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been eviscerated over her refusal to help after ICE detained her nephew’s mom.
The White House official has gone radio silent since Bruna Ferreira—who is the mother of Leavitt’s nephew—was swept up by ICE this month, Ferreira’s sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, tells the Boston Globe.
Ferreira, 33, a native of Brazil, has lived in the United States since she was six. Dos Santos Rodrigues says her sister has been a part of the Leavitt family for more than a decade after she had a son with Leavitt’s brother, Michael Leavitt Sr.
They never married but share custody of their son, who splits his time between his dad in New Hampshire and his mother in Massachusetts.
“If she were to help in any way, if she were willing to do anything to help us, she would have reached out by now. She has my phone number. We’ve been family for the last 13 years,” Dos Santos Rodrigues told the Globe. “I understand the policies and how it looks. But I also think when it comes to family, you put certain things aside. I don’t care who you work for.”
A source familiar with the situation claimed to the Daily Beast that Santos Rodrigues was less involved in the Leavitt family, saying, “This individual is the mother of Karoline’s nephew, and they have not spoken in many years. The child has lived full-time in New Hampshire with his father since he was born. He has never resided with his mother.”
However, a 2014 news article about Leavitt’s brother winning $1 million—as part of a fantasy football competition—included him saying that Ferreira was his fiancée. He added that they lived together with their 8-month-old son.
The family is photographed together in the decade-old article, and other old photos on social media show them smiling with a young son.
“I need the lights fixed on the back of my car,” Ferreira told a local paper when asked if their family had any immediate needs for the $1 million. “And we need a lamp for my son’s room. Other than that, we don’t really need much. We have our health. We have a nice condo. We really are blessed.”
Leavitt said he planned to spend some of the money by taking Ferreira on a trip to the West Coast.
Making the current matter more bizarre, Dos Santos Rodrigues revealed that some in the Leavitt family, including her child’s father, pushed her to self-deport after she was detained—back to a country where she has no home, and hardly speaks the language.
“They just kept saying, ’Tell her to self-deport,’” she told the Globe. “Self-deport to where? Brazil is not her home. They’re trying to push it off as a vacation. That’s not a vacation. Bruna barely speaks the language.”
Leavitt, 28, has not addressed the situation. Michael Leavitt, who has since remarried, did not respond to a request for comment.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Ferreira “has a previous arrest for battery” and that she overstayed a tourist visa in 1999, when she was merely a kid.
“Under President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem, all individuals unlawfully present in the United States are subject to deportation,” McLaughlin said.
Ferreira, who was leaving her home in Revere, Massachusetts, to pick up her son at the time of her arrest, is now being held at an ICE facility in Louisiana. The Globe’s report said “her car was suddenly swarmed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”
“They were not the most gentle with her,” Dos Santos Rodrigues told the paper.
A GoFundMe for Ferreira has raised nearly $20,000 as of Wednesday morning. The fundraiser says that “she has maintained her legal status through DACA, followed every requirement, and has always strived to do the right thing.”
“I’m sure my sister was terrified, frantic,“ Dos Santos Rodrigues said of her arrest. “She’s been here since she was six years old. She’s more American than she is anything else.”
