An immigration judge has ordered the release of the mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew after she was arrested by immigration agents last month and threatened with removal from the country.
Bruna Ferreira, who is originally from Brazil, was driving to pick up her 11-year-old son from school when she was suddenly surrounded by federal officers. Since then, the 33-year-old Brazilian mother has been detained inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana.
An immigration judge ordered her release Monday on a $1,500 bond while she continues a legal battle against President Donald Trump’s administration, which has labeled her a “criminal illegal alien.”
“She will be released on that amount of bond once it is processed by ICE,” her attorney Todd Pomerleau told The Independent.
Immigration Judge Cynthia Goodman ordered her release on the lowest-dollar bond possible, according to Ferreira’s legal team. Pomerleau said they argued she wasn’t a flight risk while government lawyers “never once argued” in court that she was a “criminal illegal alien” and waived appeal, he told The Independent.
Her attorneys said that the Trump administration’s characterization of Ferreira is “unfair and untrue,” according to The Washington Post, which first reported the bond order.
Following her bond order, a spokesperson for Homeland Security once again labeled Ferreira a “criminal illegal alien” and stressed that she will continue to have “periodic mandatory check-ins with ICE law enforcement to ensure she is abiding by the terms of her release.”
“The Department of Homeland Security will continue to work to remove all aliens illegally present in the country as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson told The Independent.
The story of Ferreira’s November 12 arrest and detention is deeply familiar to hundreds of immigrant families embroiled in similar legal battles and deportation threats. The revelation of her ties to Leavitt, whose brother is the father of Ferreira’s child, has complicated the Trump administration’s fervent anti-immigration agenda.
“She’s somebody that has generated publicity because of her relationship to somebody who is part of the inner circle of the White House, but at the end of the day, that she’s just one of many thousands and thousands of people that are getting this treatment on a daily basis in this administration,” Jeffrey Rubin, whose firm is representing Ferreira, told The Independent last month.
Ferreira’s parents emigrated from Brazil and brought their young daughter with them in 1998 when she was roughly 6 years old. Her two younger siblings were born in the United States.
She received temporary legal protections under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the Obama-era program that has shielded tens of thousands of people who arrived in the country as children without legal status, and she was in the process of obtaining a green card, according to her legal team.
Ferreira, who lives in Massachusetts, does not appear to have had any criminal convictions, and she shares custody with her son, according to her lawyers.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Ferreira said she wanted Leavitt to be her son’s godmother.
“I made a mistake there, in trusting,” she said. “Why they’re creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”
She was arrested for being in the United States without legal permission after overstaying a visa that expired when she was a child, according to her attorneys.
After her arrest, the White House claimed Ferreira had not spoken to Leavitt in years and that Ferreira had never lived with her son. Homeland Security also accused her of being arrested for “battery,” but her legal team cannot corroborate the administration’s allegations.
Ferreira was previously engaged to Michael Leavitt, Karoline’s brother, but they broke up more than 10 years ago, according to the family.
The Independent has requested comment from the White House.
Speaking to The Washington Post while in ICE custody, Ferreira said the administration’s claims are “disgusting” and false.
Before her arrest, she was managing a cleaning businesses, going to yoga class and spending time with her son, who has “everything a young boy needs,” she said.
Her arrest is among many in a “random and cruel mass deportation campaign” under an administration that has performed warrantless searches, arrested and deported immigrants without due process, and stripped legal protections for tens of thousands of people who were previously allowed to live and work in the country, according to Rubin.
“It's outrageous and abhorrent, and the rhetoric alone is disgusting,” he told The Independent last month.
