The woman at the center of the political firestorm concerning Karoline Leavitt is finally speaking out. She’s furious about how the administration has been portraying her. 33-year-old Bruna Ferreira is a Brazilian immigrant who’s lived in Massachusetts since childhood. She came to the U.S. in 1998 at age six and shares a son with Leavitt’s brother, Michael. The pair met at a nightclub, got engaged, moved in together in New Hampshire, and then crashed into a nasty breakup and custody fight in 2015.
Everything erupted again when Ferreira was taken into custody by ICE on Nov. 12. Immigration officials claim she’s in the country illegally after overstaying the visa she received as a child. The Department of Homeland Security has been calling her a “criminal” tied to “battery.” However, there has been no proof.
Ferreira says the White House’s version of who she is and what her relationship to the Leavitt family used to be, is pure fiction. She revealed that she once trusted Karoline deeply. She even named Leavitt her child’s godmother and described considering the now–press secretary “a younger sister” she admired.
This is Bruna Ferreira, Karoline Leavitt’s nephew’s mother, who was arrested by ICE. She just called out Leavitt: “I asked Karoline to be godmother over my only sister…why they’re creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”
RETWEET if you stand with Ferreira! pic.twitter.com/wTSN6Yt7Vk
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) December 7, 2025
“I asked Karoline to be godmother over my only sister,” Ferreira told The Washington Post. “I made a mistake there, in trusting…. Why they’re creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”
Since the arrest, the White House has pushed hard to frame Ferreira as barely connected to the Leavitt clan and as a mother who wasn’t around for her kid. After so many days of watching that storyline build, Ferreira is now blasting it as a lie. She says the claim that she never lived with her child is “disgusting” and completely false.
According to Ferreira, she and Michael, 35, ended their engagement nearly a decade ago. Then, they got into a vicious court fight. Each accused the other of abuse and neglect during a 2015 custody battle after Michael filed for primary custody in New Hampshire. In the end, the two ended up sharing caretaking duties.
Michael alleged that Ferreira shoved him, grabbed their son, and threatened to take the child to Brazil. She says it was the opposite, that he pushed her while drunk, became violent, and repeatedly used the threat of deportation as leverage. She also claims he cheated and blew large sums gambling. Court records show he’s had multiple brushes with the law — underage drinking, a DUI, and disorderly conduct. However, none of the charges stuck.
Michael insists her allegations are all lies. In a text to the New York Post, he accused the media of twisting the saga and said they’re “trying to use this whole situation to push a narrative to smear me.”
I’ve seen all these different takes on Karoline Leavitt’s nephew’s mother being detained. But the focus on whose relative she is misses the point. What this is about — as if we needed more evidence — is that ICE is NOT focusing on criminals or pubic safety threats. This is a mom… pic.twitter.com/T1dsAuxkxK
— Luke Bronin (@LukeBronin) November 28, 2025
Ferreira’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, says she has been legally in the country under DACA — the Obama-era program protecting people brought to the U.S. as children, and that she has no criminal record. He believes DHS is dangling a 2008 teenage scuffle outside a Dunkin’ Donuts over $8, a juvenile court summons that never resulted in an arrest and was dismissed and sealed because Ferreira was 16 at the time.
Michael also denies having anything to do with ICE detaining her. “I had no involvement in her being picked up by ice,” he wrote in a text to The Post. “I have no control over that and had no involvement in that whatsoever.”
But Ferreira’s attorney argues that Michael and his father have repeatedly tried to pressure her to “self-deport.” That move he says would devastate her and block her from coming back to the U.S. for ten years.
