PLAISTOW, N.H. — In this rural town just across the Massachusetts line, the Leavitt family runs a used-car dealership, with hulking work trucks lined up in the front lot. Inside the lobby, a giant TV blares Fox News, and a framed photo features President Donald Trump, posing with owners Bob and Erin Leavitt.
A New Hampshire family once best known for selling cars and ice cream, the Leavitts were thrust into the national spotlight this year when their 27-year-old daughter, Karoline, was named White House press secretary. Ten months later, the administration’s war on illegal immigration landed in the Leavitts’ backyard.
Bruna Ferreira — a Brazilian immigrant who shares an 11-year-old child with Karoline’s brother Michael Leavitt — was arrested by ICE in mid-November. Ferreira, 33, remains in custody in Louisiana. The boy lives with his father in New Hampshire.
Ferreira’s sister and lawyer had claimed there was no animosity between Ferreira and the Leavitts. But court records, police reports and family text chains reviewed by WBUR tell a vastly different story — one of a bitter custody battle, years-old allegations of a threat to call immigration authorities, and concerns for the well-being of the child when his mother was staying in a vacant mansion in Cohasset.
The arrest, first reported by WBUR, has sparked questions about whether the Leavitts used their inroads to the White House to put ICE onto Ferreira’s trail. Karoline Leavitt has denied any involvement in her arrest. And Michael Leavitt, 35, told WBUR on Thursday that neither he nor anyone else in his family called ICE on the mother of his son: “Absolutely not,” he said in a text response to questions.
ICE accused Ferreira of overstaying a visa that ran out in 1999 and of a battery arrest. Ferreira’s lawyer has said he’s unaware of crimes on her record. He said she’d been unable to renew the legal status she had under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Asked whether Karoline Leavitt would do anything to help Ferreira get released, Michael Leavitt told WBUR, “I would never ask my sister to abuse her government position to help anyone, including me — nor would I ever assume she would do so.”
Instead, Leavitt said, he and his father urged Ferreira’s sister to get her to self-deport. Leavitt said by agreeing to be deported — rather than being forced to leave through the removal process — she could one day return to the U.S.
The sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, said she called Karoline Leavitt after the arrest. She still hasn’t heard back.
Separation
Michael Leavitt met Bruna Ferreira more than a decade ago, when they were in their early 20s. Ferreira was divorcing a man from Melrose she’d married as a teen at the Always and Forever Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. That’s despite a tumultuous relationship and an allegation the boyfriend had once pulled a knife on her, according to Melrose police reports.
In March of 2014, just weeks after the divorce was final, Ferreira and Leavitt had a son.
They lived in Leavitt’s hometown of Atkinson, N.H. A local news story that October detailed him winning $1 million in a DraftKings contest and described Ferreira as his fiancée. She told the news site they had few needs: “We really are blessed.”
But after the child’s first birthday, the relationship unraveled. In April 2015, Leavitt went to the Atkinson police to report that Ferreira “was an illegal alien from Brazil” and had taken their infant child away in his Audi.
That same day, Leavitt filed a child custody complaint in New Hampshire family court. And four days later, Ferreira returned to Melrose, to ask police if they would witness her returning her engagement ring to Leavitt. She told them it was worth $62,000.
The police officer said it was a strange request, according to a report reviewed by WBUR, but agreed: “Mr. Leavitt came into the lobby and Ms. Ferreira removed the ring and gave it to him. Mr. Leavitt told Ms. Ferreira he would give her the title to their vehicle later today. Both parties left without any incident.”
In the custody case, Leavitt accused Ferreira of taking their son away in the middle of the night, saying he would never see the child again — she would take him to Brazil. (Ferreira denied this in a court filing.) She fired back, alleging Leavitt had “threatened to contact Immigration in an effort to have her deported.” (Leavitt said he doesn’t recall making that statement.) In 2015, a judge awarded Leavitt temporary “sole residential and sole decision making” responsibilities, according to documents in Salem family court.
Over the next year, the two sparred in New Hampshire family court until they finally agreed to split parenting time, and Leavitt would pay $150 a week in child support, plus medical costs.
In 2020, Ferreira returned to court, accusing her ex of not abiding by the parenting plan and claiming she was owed $70,000 in back support. She also asked for majority parenting time, saying she wanted their child to go to school in Cohasset, about an hour and a half drive away.
But the move appears to have backfired on Ferreira: In 2021, a judge decided the child would stay with Leavitt for the entire school week, and stay with Ferreira three weekends a month.
It’s known locally as the “castle,” perched on 10 acres of land. But 211 South Main St. in Cohasset was no royal estate. It’s the site of an abandoned 7,500-square-foot home that looked more like a scene from a horror movie on a recent visit. And in multiple legal filings over two years, Ferreira listed this as her address.
In June 2022, Ferreira called Cohasset police to report her son was missing from the house, where she had apparently left him with a “roommate,” according to a police report. An officer arrived and found the house “in squalor,” with holes in the ceiling, broken windows and trash strewn everywhere.
“Officers were unable to determine if there was running water or adequate food in the house,” the report says. “Officers responding to the house were unable to locate a sleeping bed for the child.”
A neighbor had also called to report a possible squatter living at the house, according to the report.
Police learned that Ferreira’s mother, Selma Valeriano, had gone to get the child when she couldn’t reach her daughter. Valeriano told police she was concerned about conditions in the house and that the child was left with “strange men.” She said she met up with the boy’s grandfather, Bob Leavitt, at a road stop in Tewksbury, and he took him back to New Hampshire.
When police reached out to Bob Leavitt by phone, confusion remained. Leavitt at first would not confirm where the boy was. Eventually, he said he was with his grandmother, Erin Leavitt. New Hampshire police located the child with his grandparents at a playground in Hampton, N.H., “safe, healthy, and in good spirits.”
Officers in Cohasset filed a so-called 51A report with the Department of Children and Families, a document police must submit in cases involving suspected child abuse or neglect. DCF would not provide further details on the case to WBUR.
For Michael Leavitt, the incident was disturbing. He told WBUR he didn’t hear from Ferreira for several months after the Cohasset incident.
“As a loving parent I chose not to pursue any further action because I thought it would be in the best interest of my son to continue to see his mother under the right circumstances,” Leavitt said in a statement Thursday.
For his son, this year has been a whirlwind — from visiting President Trump in the Oval Office, according to a Facebook post, to learning that his mother is facing deportation to the country she left as a child.
Leavitt told WBUR that co-parenting with Ferreira has been difficult, but that he wanted her in his son’s life.
“When Bruna does contact us to see him, which sometimes would not happen for weeks or months, I have always made an effort to drive many hours to wherever she was living at the time, to ensure my son maintains a relationship with his mother,” Leavitt said in a text.
The White House
At a press conference Monday, the first since news broke of Ferreira’s arrest, Karoline Leavitt made no mention of the arrest of her nephew’s mother. But Leavitt hammered home Trump’s aim to remove “all illegal alien invaders,” saying “America cannot allow millions upon millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be rewarded with amnesty after they broke our nation’s laws to come here.”
As Leavitt spoke those words this week, the mother of her nephew was sitting at an ICE facility in Louisiana.
The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Karoline Leavitt declined last week to speak with WBUR when asked initially about Ferreira’s arrest. An administration official at the time issued a statement saying the child had never lived with Ferreira, and that “Karoline had no involvement whatsoever in this matter.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Last week, the agency’s press officer said Ferreira had once been arrested for battery, but would not disclose more specifics.
WBUR sought police records in multiple towns where Ferreira has lived, including Melrose, where she attended high school. Melrose police produced multiple reports involving Ferreira, including an incident from when she was 16 years old. The officer said he witnessed her in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, holding a girl by the hair and punching her in the face — over $8. The officer said he’d be summoning her to court for assault and battery.
Ferreira’s sister, Dos Santos, has raised more than $36,000 in a GoFundMe to fight Ferreira’s deportation. In an interview she said she speaks with Ferreira nearly every day by phone: “They’re not at a summer camp. They’re in a detention center. It’s cold. It’s not comfortable. But she is keeping her head up.”
Dos Santos recounted the phone call from Michael and Bob Leavitt: she said it was brief and to the point, and they said self-deporting would be Ferreira’s best option.
Dos Santos said there’s no bad blood between her and the Leavitts; they share a family member in common.
”There’s no animosity between us,” she said. “I mean, unless there’s something that I’m unaware of, I have no bones to [pick] with any of them.”
But where they disagree is on what Ferreira should do next. Dos Santos said she’s going to help her sister stay in the only country she knows.
“Bruna does not know Brazil,” she said. “She’s not Brazilian. She’s as American as can be.”
With additional reporting from WBUR’s Rachell Sanchez-Smith and Jesse Costa
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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