Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has shown that she’s highly capable—from handling press briefings to managing high-level delegations, the 28-year-old clearly knows how to do her job. With praise coming from her team, the last thing Leavitt wants at this stage of her career is for her personal life to become entangled with her professional responsibilities.
Yet Leavitt has found herself pulled into a recent detention case involving ICE agents. On November 12, 2025, Bruna Ferreira was detained during a nationwide ICE operation and now faces deportation to Brazil. Ferreira had previously been in a relationship with Leavitt’s brother, Michael Leavitt, and is the mother of his 11-year-old son.
According to The Irish Star, Ferreira was arrested in Hemisphere while dropping off her son, Michael Jr., at school and was taken to Louisiana. The Department of Homeland Security labeled her a “criminal illegal alien,” saying she overstayed a tourist visa after arriving in the United States in 1999.
If you didn’t know @PressSec was a lying PO$er before-
Judge orders release of Karoline Leavitt family member being held by ICE https://t.co/Lmx4xpE1A7
— mRecouvrer (@MRecouvrer) December 8, 2025
According to WCVB, attorney Todd Pomerleau, who represents Bruna Ferreira, said she has lived in the U.S. under DACA, the Obama-era program that protects certain immigrants brought to the country as children. The department stated that she had been arrested for battery, even though the allegations have not been proven.
Pomerleau strongly disputed DHS’s claims, insisting Ferreira has no criminal record and saying he would present proof before allowing unproven accusations to stand. The 11-year-old’s mother was abruptly arrested right before Thanksgiving.
As of December 8, an immigration judge ruled that 33-year-old Bruna Ferreira could be released from ICE custody as she fights her possible deportation. Attorney Todd Pomerleau has argued that she bears no fault.
Meanwhile, as Karoline Leavitt’s name became linked to the case, with several media organizations reporting that Ferreira had personal ties to Leavitt, the press secretary said she had not been in contact with Ferreira for years.
However, according to Pomerleau, Ferreira had once chosen Leavitt to be her child’s godmother instead of her own sister, showing how close they once were. According to The Daily Beast, Pomerleau added that Ferreira had accompanied members of Leavitt’s family to a soccer game just a few weeks earlier and had remained in regular contact with them.
A family member of WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been detained by ICE.
Bruna Caroline Ferreira, with an expired 1999 visa and past battery arrest, now faces deportation to Brazil.
Her family has launched a GoFundMe that’s raised $14K+.
A sensitive case fueling… pic.twitter.com/o4Zn6i16Z7
— Unassociated Press (@unassociatedps) November 27, 2025
“She has absolutely seen and spoken with Karoline Leavitt within the last year—possibly even in recent months,” Pomerleau told the outlet on November 30. These ongoing cases of detentions, deportations, and alleged abuse are part of the GOP’s mass deportation policies that began in January 2025.
What began as a policy to remove immigrants with criminal records has evolved into a full-scale operation marked by aggressive arrests and reports of violence and mistreatment, disproportionately impacting minority communities. As of August 28, 2025, CNN reported that ICE alone has deported nearly 200,000 people in recent months.
View this post on Instagram
As the complex situation continues to haunt the Ferreira family, her sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover legal fees, raising more than $14,000 toward a $30,000 goal.
