The attorney for Bruna Ferreira—the mother of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew, who was detained by ICE officials—has revealed that Ferreira chose the White House press secretary to be her child’s godmother.
Ferreira’s lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, told CNN on Wednesday that she remains civil with the Leavitt family because they share an 11-year-old child, despite separating from Leavitt’s brother, Michael.
“She had a relationship with Karoline Leavitt’s brother, and it didn’t work out. They were engaged for a while. They had a child together. They thought they were going to get married,” Pomerleau said. “She has no problems with the Leavitt family. She literally picked Karoline to be the godmother of Michael Jr., over her own sister.”
Ferreira had a relationship with Leavitt’s brother more than a decade ago. The pair share custody of their son, but the boy is believed to spend most of his time with his father in New Hampshire.
A source familiar with the situation had suggested to the Daily Beast that the 11-year-old 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 local news report about how Michael Leavitt had won $1m in a DraftKings fantasy sports contest states that he and Ferreira were engaged and lived together with their 8-month-old son.
Ferreira, who traveled to the U.S. legally with her family as a young child, was detained by ICE agents in Revere, Massachusetts, while picking up her son from school. The Department of Homeland Security accuses her of overstaying a tourist visa that required her to leave the country in 1999 and says she was previously arrested for battery.
“The government is claiming she violated the visa, but a six-year-old isn’t responsible for breaking the law,” Pomerleau said. “A six-year-old such as her would only become responsible for being in a visa-violation status six months after her 18th birthday. By then, she already had DACA, which is a lawful process.
“But DACA doesn’t lead to a green card, and now she’s in the middle of applying for her green card—which she’s been waiting for for 27 years—and then she gets sandbagged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is taken from her child right before Thanksgiving.”
While being detained earlier this month, Ferreira repeatedly told agents that her child’s aunt was Leavitt, one of the most prominent White House officials and a frequent defender of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration plans, The Boston Globe reported.
The White House press secretary has not publicly addressed the news that ICE arrested the mother of her nephew.
“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,” Ferreira’s sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, told The Boston 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.”
Ferreira is currently in custody at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, more than 1,500 miles from where she was detained by masked ICE agents.
“She’s being treated like some kind of castaway. They’re acting like she doesn’t care about her son, that she’s not part of their lives. She’s part of the Leavitt family’s lives,” Pomerleau told CNN.
“He needs to have his father in his life, just like he needs to have his mother in his life, and they should all be together for this holiday. And unfortunately, she’s sitting in a jail cell in a for-profit prison on the taxpayers’ dime.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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