Bruna Ferreira got here to the US from Brazil as a baby, and by all accounts, lived a life like all American: enjoying on the highschool tennis group, getting married and divorced, constructing a small enterprise and serving to increase her son.
When she was taken into custody by ICE brokers earlier this month as she left her residence in a Boston suburb to select up her son from college, it didn’t make headlines: she was one other immigrant caught up in President Donald Trump’s deportation crackdown, regardless of having developed robust American roots.
But throughout her arrest, Ferreira repeatedly instructed authorities that her son’s aunt was the White House press secretary, her sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, instructed the Boston Globe. Her former fiancé – the daddy of her 11-year-old son – is the brother of Karoline Leavitt.
“I’m sure she tried to just use whatever she could come up with in the moment,” Dos Santos Rodrigues instructed the Globe. “However, it didn’t really help very much.”
Now, Ferreira’s familial connection to Leavitt – one of the crucial outstanding voices supporting Trump’s deportation push – has reworked her into an emblem of how far the immigration crackdown is reaching. It’s additionally provoked debate over her background: the administration has described her as a “criminal illegal alien” who had been arrested for battery, however her attorneys say she has no legal report and beforehand had safety from deportation as a part of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Ferreira, 33, is now detained in an ICE detention middle in Louisiana, going through deportation proceedings. She broke up along with her son’s father, Leavitt’s brother Michael Leavitt, 35, a few decade in the past, her sister instructed the Globe. A supply aware of the scenario instructed NCS that Ferreira and the White House press secretary haven’t spoken in a few years.
Ferreira got here to the US at age six along with her mother and father from Brazil, Dos Santos Rodrigues instructed the Globe, calling her “more American than she is anything else.” Ferreira arrived within the US on a vacationer visa that required her to depart the nation in 1999, based on a DHS spokesperson.
Instead, Ferreira grew up in suburban Boston and attended Melrose High School, the place she performed on the tennis group and graduated in 2011, based on college yearbooks. In her senior yearbook, she selected the quote “La vita e bella,” and wrote that “In the year 2021,” she could be “older, wiser and successful.”
Ferreira married a highschool classmate just a few months after commencement, however they separated the next yr and divorced in 2014, based on court docket information.
By that point, Ferreira was engaged to Michael Leavitt, Karoline Leavitt’s older brother, who ran his household’s auto dealership in New Hampshire, based on a 2014 article within the Salem News newspaper about him successful $1 million in a fantasy soccer competitors. The article featured a photograph of Michael Leavitt, Ferreira, and their then eight-month-old son, beaming whereas posing with an enormous novelty examine.
Ferreira instructed the newspaper that the household didn’t have any large must spend the prize cash on.
“I need the lights fixed on the back of my car,” she mentioned. “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.”
Court information on the time present Ferreira listed her handle as a house Michael Leavitt owned in Atkinson, New Hampshire, simply over the border from Massachusetts.
Facebook images posted by Ferreira present her spending time along with her younger son, going trick-or-treating and taking him to his first Red Sox sport. But the couple by no means married, and their son lived together with his father in New Hampshire after his mother moved again to Massachusetts, a supply aware of the scenario instructed NCS.
Michael Leavitt instructed NCS affiliate WMUR on Tuesday evening that Ferreira has maintained a relationship with their son, however the boy has not spoken to her since her detention. He described the scenario as tough and mentioned he simply desires the most effective for his son.
Back in Massachusetts, Ferreira ran a home-cleaning enterprise, based on social media postings and buddies. Lisa Batista, who labored with Ferreira for about two years at a Boston-area nightclub in 2016 and 2017, remembered her as being “very friendly, very hardworking.” She mentioned she was shocked when one other former coworker instructed her Wednesday morning that Ferreira had been detained by ICE.
Ferreira’s legal professional, Todd Pomerleau, instructed NCS she was a former recipient of DACA, which grants momentary safety from deportation for these dropped at the US as youngsters.
She was unable to resume her standing just a few years in the past throughout Trump’s efforts to finish this system throughout his first time period, however is at present in the midst of a “lawful immigration process” for US citizenship, Pomerleau mentioned.
Ferreira remained current in her son’s life, incessantly driving to and from New Hampshire to go to him, cooking him Brazilian delicacies and taking him to Dave & Buster’s, Dos Santos Rodrigues instructed the Globe.
Dos Santos Rodrigues mentioned the household has not heard from Karoline Leavitt. Michael Leavitt urged her to inform her sister to “self-deport” to Brazil, Dos Santos Rodrigues mentioned – however she mentioned the US is Ferreira’s residence.
Ferreira’s son “needs his mom home,” Dos Santos Rodrigues mentioned. “He’s always asking, ‘When’s my mom coming home? Will she be home for Thanksgiving? Will she be home for Christmas?’”