Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have detained the mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew amid the Trump administration’s hardline immigration crackdown, according to sources cited by NBC News.ICE agents took Bruna Caroline Ferreira into custody this month in Revere, Massachusetts. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson described her as a “criminal illegal alien from Brazil” who overstayed her tourist visa, which expired in June 1999. The spokesperson also said Ferreira has an arrest on suspicion of battery.Ferreira is currently being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center while proceedings for her removal continue, the spokesperson said. According to another source cited by NBC, Ferreira has never lived with Leavitt’s nephew, who has resided full-time in New Hampshire with his father since birth and has not been in contact with his mother for many years.Under US President Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the spokesperson added, “all individuals unlawfully present in the United States are subject to deportation.”Ferreira’s family said in a GoFundMe campaign that she was brought to the US as a child in 1998 and has done “everything in her power to build a stable, honest life here.” The campaign says that she “maintained her legal status” through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which protects certain immigrants brought to the US illegally as children.DACA recipients have been among those detained in recent immigration sweeps, reports the Associated Press. Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said that DACA status can be lost “for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime.”
What is Leavitt’s stance on ICE detentions/deportations?
Karoline has insisted that all people arrested by ICE since Trump returned to office are criminals because they “illegally broke our nation’s laws.” She insisted that illegal entry or presence in the United States is a “federal crime,” and that the GOP administration is focusing on deporting “illegal criminals,” but that even people without violent-crime convictions can be subject to deportation if they entered illegally.
