The one-time relative of Karoline Leavitt has spoken out for the first time after she was released from ICE custody.
Bruna Ferreira, 33, posted a thank you to her loved ones on Instagram, vowing to reach out to each of them upon landing back in Massachusetts, where she was snatched without warning on Nov. 12 in what friends believe was a “targeted” arrest.
“I will answer everyone as soon as humanly possibly!” she posted early Tuesday. morning. “I promise 🤞🥲.”
Seven hours later, she shared another message to her Instagram story, along with a photo of her smiling with her son and kittens.
“Thank you to everyone who was in my corner,” she wrote. “I’ll be personally calling and texting each and every single one of you individually as soon as I land!”
Ferreira spent the last three-and-a-half weeks at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, infamous for its “repeated” reports of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, physical abuse, coerced labor, and “neglect of urgent medical care.”
The house cleaner—from the Boston suburb of Revere—was flown over 1,500 miles to the facility after ICE agents cornered her vehicle as she drove to pick up her son from school, ordered her out of it, and placed her in handcuffs
Ferreira shares a middle-school-aged son with the 28-year-old White House Press Secretary’s brother, Michael Leavitt, 35, with whom she was engaged before they split in 2015.
The elder Leavitt has since married someone else, and a friend of Ferreira tells the Daily Beast that the two share custody of the boy.
A judge on Monday allowed Ferreira to post bail of $1,500 as she contests ICE’s push to return her to her native Brazil, where she has not lived since she was six, her attorney told the Daily Beast. A lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security said Ferreira was not a danger to society or a flight risk, and reportedly encouraged her release.
A friend of Ferreira told the Daily Beast that she maintained a healthy co-parenting relationship with Leavitt for years, but things became rockier when he remarried in 2022. The friend said Ferreira’s son lived primarily with her, contradicting a claim that the boy lived in New Hampshire full-time with his father.
The White House has distanced itself from the issue. It said in statement that Leavitt and Ferreira were not close and had not spoken in years. However, Ferreira told The Washington Post that Leavitt was once “like a younger sister” to her.
“I made a mistake there, in trusting,” she told the paper.
Ferreira added, “I asked Karoline to be godmother over my only sister. Why they’re creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”
The Trump administration has claimed that Ferreira has been accused of battery, but has not provided documentation of her ever being charged. Records show she has no criminal record in Massachusetts, where she has long lived. The administration has not responded to requests for details about the supposed offense.
Both Ferreira’s lawyer and her friends believe that she was specifically targeted by ICE.
Ferreira was taken into custody while on her way to pick up her son from school, and one of her friends tells the Beast that would be one of the few times her whereabouts would be known by the Leavitt family.
