The mother of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew is speaking out for the first time since she was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month.

Bruna Caroline Ferreira, a native of Brazil, was arrested on November 12 at her home outside Boston. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said the 33-year-old woman was in the United States illegally after overstaying her tourist visa that expired in 1999, when she was still a child. In a statement to CNN, the spokesperson called Ferreira “an illegal foreign criminal from Brazil” with “a prior arrest for assault.”

On Monday, an immigration judge ordered Ferreira released from a Louisiana detention center on $1,500 bail while he fights possible deportation. Her arrest has come under national scrutiny, given that she was once engaged to Leavitt’s brother, Michael Leavitt. The former couple share an 11-year-old son, Michael Leavitt Jr.

Before his release, Ferreira spoke at length with The Washington Post in an interview published Sunday. In it, she rejected the White House’s depiction of her as an absent mother, as well as claims that she had not spoken to Karoline Leavitt for years.

“I asked Karoline to be godmother to my only sister,” she said. “I made a mistake there, in trusting… Why they are creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been a spokesperson for President Donald Trump in his offensive against immigration.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been a spokesperson for President Donald Trump in his offensive against immigration.

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Although she and Michael Leavitt ended their relationship in 2015, Ferreira said that until now the couple has shared caring responsibilities for their son. The Post report, however, indicates that the two had a contentious custody battle in which each accused the other of abuse and neglect.

Ferreira also told The Post that Michael Leavitt had “used intimidation” based on his “immigration status” after the separation, a claim he denied.

“I had no involvement in ICE detaining her. I have no control over that and I had no involvement in that at all,” he wrote in a text message to The Post, before accusing the outlet of “trying to use this entire situation to push a narrative to smear me.”

Ferreira’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said his client has no criminal record. As for the DHS claim of a “prior assault arrest,” Pomerleau said it could be a reference to a 2009 incident in which Ferreira, then 16, was involved in a physical altercation with another teenage girl outside a Dunkin’ Donuts. Ferreira was never arrested, he said, and the case was eventually dismissed.

Although Karoline Leavitt has not commented publicly on Ferreira’s arrest, she has been a strident spokesperson for President Donald Trump throughout his immigration offensive. In July, he horrified critics with his glowing description of the Trump administration’s immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, informally called “Alligator Alcatraz.”