Mother Of Karoline Leavitt's Nephew Speaks Out After Her ICE Arrest With Scathing Message For Leavitt

Bruna Caroline Ferreira, the mother of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's nephew, spoke out in an interview on CNN after ICE arrested her last month, saying Leavitt is "not a good Catholic" for backing the draconian policies that led to her detention.

Ferreira shares her son with her ex-fiancé, Leavitt’s older brother, Michael Leavitt. On November 12, she was arrested and detained while picking up her 11-year-old son from school in Revere, Massachusetts. A judge later ordered that she be released from South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.

Ferreira was born in Brazil and has been in the U.S. since 1998, when she was six. She had previously been protected under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy and was in the process of obtaining a green card at the time she was arrested.

An official with Homeland Security said that her tourist visa had expired in 1999. Ferreira's lawyer has also denied Homeland Security's claim that Ferreira "has a previous arrest for battery."

When asked what she would say to Leavitt now that she is free, she responded:

“I think what I would have to say to Karoline is: Just because you went to a Catholic school doesn't make you a good Catholic. You are a mother now. How would you feel if you were in those, in my shoes? … How would you feel if somebody did this to you?”

"At the end of the day, nobody is above the law. It could happen to anybody, so I can't wrap my mind around and hopefully there's a logical explanation for all of this. ... It doesn't make sense. I'm trying to understand, to have faith that there's a logical explanation for this, but there isn't."

"I'm not the first. I'm surely not going to be the last. Thousands of children and women and families are being separated daily. Where does it end? Where does it stop?"

You can hear what she said in the video below.

Leavitt has devout religious beliefs and has said she begins every day with prayer. She has also said her education at a Catholic high school in Massachusetts "taught me discipline, it brought me closer in my own relationship with God, and it also taught me the importance of public service and giving back to your community.”

Despite this, she has not commented on Ferreira's arrest.

Ferreira's remarks struck a chord—and many criticized Leavitt and her silence since the news of Ferreira's arrest broke.

Ferreira stressed that she is a "law-abiding citizen" and said she is "heartbroken" not only for her son but also "for my mother, who has worked for a quarter of a century cleaning houses, earned an honest living, has paid her taxes."

She said she was touched by her experience sharing the detention with other women, many of them with children of their own. She added that while she "was in such a horrible situation, [the women] were praying for me and I was praying for them."

Additionally, she said she "can't fathom a mother not knowing where her son is for a year and a half, and who's with him, what he's eating, if he's going to bed on time, if he's sick. I can't imagine."