Bruna Ferreira, Mother of Karoline Leavitt’s Nephew, Granted Bond

BASILE, LOUISIANA An immigration judge has ordered Bruna Ferreira, the Brazilian‑born mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew, released from federal immigration custody on a $1,500 bond, shifting a politically sensitive case out of a locked detention wing and back into the community even as she continues to face deportation.

Immigration Judge Cynthia Goodman ruled on Monday that Ferreira could leave the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, where she had been held after a transfer from Massachusetts, if she posted a $1,500 bond. Her legal team described the amount as the “lowest-dollar bond possible,” a figure that underscored the judge’s decision that she did not pose a danger or flight risk serious enough to justify continued confinement. Mother Jones likewise reported that “a US immigration judge on Monday ordered her release on a $1,500 bond.”

Ferreira, 33, is originally from Brazil and is the ex‑fiancée of Karoline Leavitt’s brother, Michael Leavitt. She is the mother of his 11‑year‑old son, a U.S.-based child whose daily life was suddenly pulled into the orbit of immigration enforcement when his mother was arrested in Massachusetts. According to accounts cited in the case, she was driving to pick up her 11‑year‑old son from school on November 12 when she was

“suddenly surrounded by federal officers.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took her into custody that day, and she was later moved more than 1,500 miles to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, a remote facility in Basile that holds noncitizens in civil detention.

The Department of Homeland Security has taken a hard line on her case. A DHS spokesperson described Ferreira as a

“criminal illegal alien from Brazil”

and said she overstayed a tourist visa that expired in June 1999. The same spokesperson pointed to a prior arrest on suspicion of battery as part of the government’s justification for pursuing her removal. President Trump’s administration has used that label in pushing ahead with deportation proceedings, and official statements have repeated the description of her as a “criminal illegal alien from Brazil” and, in separate comments, as a “criminal illegal alien.”

Her defense team sharply rejects that portrayal. In open court, her attorney Jason Thomas argued to Judge Goodman that the Trump administration’s characterization of Ferreira is

“unfair and untrue,”

according to reporting cited from The Washington Post. Her lawyers say she came to the United States as a child, around age six, and overstayed a childhood visa rather than making an adult decision to violate immigration rules. They also say they have been unable to corroborate DHS claims about a battery case, challenging the government’s effort to cast her as a public safety threat.

Ferreira’s immigration history places her among hundreds of thousands of young people who grew up in the United States after being brought across the border as children. She later received protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a program that offers work permits and temporary protection from deportation for certain undocumented immigrants who arrived as minors. Her lawyer has said she was in the process of obtaining a green card but had been unable to renew her status. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website explains that DACA is discretionary and does not provide a direct path to permanent residency, leaving many long‑time residents like Ferreira vulnerable when paperwork lapses or background checks raise questions.

The $1,500 bond ordered by Judge Goodman is a modest sum by immigration court standards, where bonds can run into tens of thousands of dollars when judges believe a person might flee. By setting what her attorneys called the “lowest-dollar bond possible,” Goodman signaled that she accepted at least part of the argument that Ferreira, with an 11‑year‑old son in the United States and deep family ties through the Leavitt family, was not likely to disappear before her next court hearings. Friends and relatives now face the task of raising the bond money and arranging her release from the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center so she can reunite with her son while her case goes forward.

Yet the order does not resolve the core issue: whether she will be deported. Even with the bond in place, Ferreira “still faces possible deportation” and remains in active removal proceedings. Her lawyers must now prepare to argue against her expulsion in immigration court, where DHS attorneys can continue to rely on the “criminal illegal alien” label and her long‑expired visa to argue for her removal from the United States. The bond hearing was a narrow question about confinement; the coming merits hearings will decide her ability to stay.

Her arrest and detention stand out because of her family link to the White House. Karoline Leavitt serves as President Trump’s press secretary, a role that places her at the center of messaging on immigration enforcement and border policy. Ferreira, as the mother of Leavitt’s 11‑year‑old nephew, sits at a fraught intersection of personal family ties and the administration’s aggressive stance on people it calls “criminal illegal alien from Brazil” and similar terms. The case illustrates how those policies can reach into the lives of mixed‑status families, where U.S.-born children and undocumented parents share the same household.

The scene described by her legal team on November 12 — a mother driving to school, “suddenly surrounded by federal officers.” — offers a stark image of how these policies are carried out on the ground. For the 11‑year‑old waiting to be picked up that day, the enforcement action meant not just a missed ride home but weeks separated from his mother while she was moved into immigration custody, out of Massachusetts and down to rural Louisiana. The distance to Basile and the controlled environment of the ICE Processing Center made family visits and direct contact far harder than if she had been held closer to home.

At the same time, the case highlights the complexity surrounding people who once held DACA but later fell out of status. DACA recipients must file renewals every two years and meet strict rules on criminal records and continuous residence. Ferreira’s lawyer has said she was trying to move from that temporary status to a green card, but that she had been unable to renew in the meantime. When DHS points to her visa overstay since June 1999 and a prior arrest on suspicion of battery, and when her attorneys respond that they cannot corroborate the battery claim and call the government’s profile “unfair and untrue,” the dispute goes to the heart of how much weight old records and unproven allegations should carry in deciding a person’s future in the country where they grew up.

Immigration judges like Cynthia Goodman operate within that tension every day. They do not control who is arrested — that remains with DHS and ICE — but they decide whether individuals stay detained and, ultimately, whether the law allows them to remain in the United States. In Ferreira’s case, Goodman opted against prolonged incarceration at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, instead granting the $1,500 bond that will let her leave Basile and return to Massachusetts while her case continues. For detainees and advocates, such bond grants mean the difference between fighting a case while locked in a remote facility and preparing a defense from home, with easier access to lawyers, records and family support.

For the Trump administration, the stakes are different. Officials have framed people like Ferreira — a long‑time resident who overstayed a childhood visa — as examples of what they call lax past enforcement. By calling her a “criminal illegal alien from Brazil” and stressing an earlier arrest on suspicion of battery, DHS is using the language of public safety to justify strict action, even in a case tied to the family of the president’s own press secretary. For her lawyer Jason Thomas, the focus is on dismantling that narrative in court, insisting it is “unfair and untrue” and urging Judge Goodman and future panels to see Ferreira as a mother and long‑time resident who has tried to regularize her status.

As Ferreira prepares to leave detention, the outcome of her case will now turn on how immigration law, past records and present family ties are weighed in the next set of hearings. The $1,500 bond she must pay to walk out of the ICE Processing Center in Basile is small compared to the larger question of whether she will be allowed to remain in the only country she has really known since around age six, or whether the removal proceedings against her under President Trump’s administration will end with her being sent back to Brazil, away from her 11‑year‑old son and the extended Leavitt family that links her story directly to the White House.