Officials detained the mother of White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt's nephew as the Trump administration intensifies immigration enforcement efforts, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took the woman into custody in Revere, Massachusetts, this month, the source said.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Bruna Caroline Ferreira is a “criminal illegal immigrant from Brazil” who overstayed her tourist visa, which expired in June 1999.
The woman was arrested on suspicion of battery, a spokesman said. It is unclear how the case was resolved.
Ferreira, who a source familiar with the situation said never lived with Leavitt's nephew, is being held at an ICE processing center in South Louisiana amid her removal proceedings, a DHS spokesman said.
Under President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a spokesman said, “all persons illegally in the United States are subject to deportation.”
The source said Leavitt's nephew has lived full-time in New Hampshire with his father since his birth and has never lived with his mother or spoken to her for years.
The story was first reported by the Boston University community. television station and news platform WBUR. Leavitt declined to comment to WBUR.
Ferreira's family said in a GoFundMe campaign that she was brought to the United States as a child in 1998 and that she did “everything she could to build a stable and honest life here.”
It says she has “maintained her legal status” in the United States by receiving protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which aims to allow immigrants brought to the United States as children, albeit illegally, to enjoy protection from removal.
The Associated Press reported this on Tuesday. DACA recipients among those detained in immigration sweeps.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement published Tuesday in an AP story that DACA recipients could lose their status “for a number of reasons, including if they have committed a crime.”
