(CNN) — Bruna Ferreira came to the US from Brazil as a child, and by all accounts, lived a life like any American: playing on the high school tennis team, getting married and divorced, building a small business and helping raise her son.

When she was taken into custody by ICE agents earlier this month as she left her home in a Boston suburb to pick up her son from school, it didn’t make headlines: she was another immigrant caught up in President Donald Trump’s deportation crackdown, despite having developed strong American roots.

But during her arrest, Ferreira repeatedly told authorities that her son’s aunt was the White House press secretary, her sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, told the Boston Globe. Her former fiancé – the father of her 11-year-old son – is the brother of Karoline Leavitt.

“I’m sure she tried to just use whatever she could come up with in the moment,” Dos Santos Rodrigues told the Globe. “However, it didn’t really help very much.”

Now, Ferreira’s familial connection to Leavitt – one of the most prominent voices supporting Trump’s deportation push – has transformed her into a symbol of how far the immigration crackdown is reaching. It’s also provoked debate over her background: the administration has described her as a “criminal illegal alien” who had been arrested for battery, but her lawyers say she has no criminal record and previously had protection from deportation as part of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Ferreira, 33, is now detained in an ICE detention center in Louisiana, facing deportation proceedings. She broke up with her son’s father, Leavitt’s brother Michael Leavitt, 35, about a decade ago, her sister told the Globe. A source familiar with the situation told CNN that Ferreira and the White House press secretary have not spoken in many years.

Ferreira’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Wednesday, “She’s part of the Leavitt family’s lives,” adding the White House press secretary is Ferreira’s son’s godmother.

Ferreira came to the US at age six with her parents from Brazil, Dos Santos Rodrigues told the Globe, calling her “more American than she is anything else.” Ferreira arrived in the US on a tourist visa that required her to leave the country in 1999, according to a DHS spokesperson.

But Pomerleau argued Wednesday, “A 6-year-old isn’t responsible for breaking the law.”

“A 6-year-old such as her would only be responsible for being in a visa violation status six months after 18th birthday. By then, she already had DACA, which is a lawful process,” Pomerleau said on “OutFront,” referring to the Obama-era immigration program that grants temporary protection from deportation for those brought to the US as children.

Pomerleau added that Ferreira is “in the middle of applying for her green card, which she’s been waiting for for 27 years.”

Ferreira grew up in suburban Boston and attended Melrose High School, where she played on the tennis team and graduated in 2011, according to school yearbooks. In her senior yearbook, she chose the quote “La vita e bella,” and wrote that “In the year 2021,” she would be “older, wiser and successful.”

Ferreira married a high school classmate a few months after graduation, but they separated the following year and divorced in 2014, according to court records.

By that time, Ferreira was engaged to Michael Leavitt, Karoline Leavitt’s older brother, who ran his family’s auto dealership in New Hampshire, according to a 2014 article in the Salem News newspaper about him winning $1 million in a fantasy football competition. The article featured a photo of Michael Leavitt, Ferreira, and their then eight-month-old son, beaming while posing with a huge novelty check.

Ferreira told the newspaper that the family didn’t have any big needs to spend the prize money on.

“I need the lights fixed on the back of my car,” she said. “And we need a lamp for my son’s room. Other than that, we don’t really need much. We have our health. We have a nice condo. We really are blessed.”

Court records at the time show Ferreira listed her address as a home Michael Leavitt owned in Atkinson, New Hampshire, just over the border from Massachusetts.

Facebook photos posted by Ferreira show her spending time with her young son, going trick-or-treating and taking him to his first Red Sox game. But the couple never married, and their son lived with his father in New Hampshire after his mother moved back to Massachusetts, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

Michael Leavitt told?CNN affiliate WMUR?on Tuesday night that Ferreira has maintained a relationship with their son, but the boy has not spoken to her since her detention. He described the situation as difficult and said he just wants the best for his son.

Back in Massachusetts, Ferreira ran a home-cleaning business, according to social media postings and friends. Lisa Batista, who worked with Ferreira for about two years at a Boston-area nightclub in 2016 and 2017, remembered her as being “very friendly, very hardworking.” She said she was shocked when another former coworker told her Wednesday morning that Ferreira had been detained by ICE.

Ferreira remained present in her son’s life, frequently driving to and from New Hampshire to visit him, cooking him Brazilian cuisine and taking him to Dave & Buster’s, Dos Santos Rodrigues told the Globe.

Dos Santos Rodrigues said the family has not heard from Karoline Leavitt. Michael Leavitt urged her to tell her sister to “self-deport” to Brazil, Dos Santos Rodrigues said – but she said the US is Ferreira’s home.

Ferreira’s son “needs his mom home,” Dos Santos Rodrigues said. “He’s always asking, ‘When’s my mom coming home? Will she be home for Thanksgiving? Will she be home for Christmas?’”

Pomerleau told CNN that when he spoke to Ferreira, she was “crying.”

“She wants her son,” he added.

This story has been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.