By HOLLY RAMER
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts lady who was as soon as engaged to the brother of White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt stays in ICE custody two weeks after being arrested on her approach to decide up the son she shares together with her former fiancé.
Bruna Ferreira, 33, was driving to her son’s college in New Hampshire on Nov. 12 when she was pulled over in Revere, Massachusetts, her legal professional, Todd Pomerleau, mentioned Wednesday.
“She wasn’t instructed why she was detained,” he mentioned. “She was bounced from Massachusetts, to New Hampshire, to Vermont, to Louisiana on this unconstitutional merry-go-round.”
Pomerleau mentioned Ferreira’s 11-year-old son lives together with her former fiancé, Michael Leavitt, in New Hampshire, however they’ve shared custody and maintained a co-parenting relationship for a few years since their engagement broke off.
“She was detained for no cause in any respect. She’s not harmful. She’s not a flight danger. She’s not a prison unlawful alien,” he mentioned. “She’s a enterprise proprietor who pays taxes and has a baby who was questioning the place mommy was after college two weeks in the past.”
Michael Leavitt didn’t reply to a message despatched to his office. The White Home press secretary declined remark. Karoline Leavitt grew up in New Hampshire, and made an unsuccessful run for Congress from the state in 2022 earlier than changing into Trump’s spokesperson for his 2024 marketing campaign and later becoming a member of him on the White Home.
Pomerleau mentioned his consumer was 2 or 3 when she and her household got here to the U.S. from Brazil, and she or he later enrolled within the Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals program, the Obama-era coverage that shields immigrants who have been delivered to the U.S. as youngsters. He mentioned she was within the means of making use of for a inexperienced card.
The Division of Homeland Safety mentioned Ferreira entered the U.S. on a vacationer visa that required her to go away in 1999. A division spokesperson mentioned Ferreira had a earlier arrest for battery, an allegation her legal professional denied.
A web-based search of courtroom circumstances in a number of Massachusetts areas the place she has lived discovered no report of such a cost.
“They’re claiming she has some kind of prison report we’ve seen nowhere. Present us the proof,” Pomerleau mentioned. “She would’ve been deported years in the past if that was true. And but, right here she is in the course of this immigration imbroglio.”
A DHS spokesperson confirmed Ferreira is being held in Louisiana.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to broadly reshape immigration coverage have included altering the strategy to DACA recipients. Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin just lately issued a press release saying that individuals “who declare to be recipients of Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) aren’t mechanically protected against deportations. DACA doesn’t confer any type of authorized standing on this nation.”
