U.S. immigration authorities have detained at least four children from the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights, including a five-year-old boy, according to local school officials and an attorney representing the family.
The case has drawn scrutiny after JD Vance publicly defended the detention, a version of events that school leaders and witnesses dispute.
Family Taken to Texas Detention Facility
The child, an Ecuadorian national, and his father were taken to a family detention center in Dilley, said Marc Prokosch, a lawyer seeking their release. Prokosch said both father and son are in the United States legally as asylum applicants.
School district officials said the boy, identified as Liam Conejo Ramos, was one of four students detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week. The others include two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old.
Schools Describe Heavy ICE Presence
Zena Stenvik, superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public School District, said armed and masked ICE officers have been operating around schools and neighbourhoods.
“ICE agents have been roaming our communities, circling our schools, following buses and entering school parking lots,” Stenvik said at a press conference. “This level of enforcement is traumatizing our children.”
Crackdown Fuels Community Tension
The detentions are part of President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration crackdown, which has sent roughly 3,000 federal law enforcement officers into the Minneapolis area.
Tensions in the region have been high since the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, by an immigration officer earlier this month.
While federal authorities say the operations target dangerous criminals and immigration violators, community members have responded with observer patrols, using whistles to alert residents of ICE activity.
Conflicting Accounts of Five-Year-Old’s Detention
The Department of Homeland Security said Liam’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, was in the country illegally, though officials did not provide further details.
Witnesses said Liam was wearing a blue hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack when agents detained his father in the driveway after the pair returned from preschool. Officers then took the child with them, despite offers from neighbors, school officials and family members to care for him, witnesses said.
Vice President Vance said officers had no choice but to take the child after his father fled.
“What are they supposed to do — leave a five-year-old child alone?” Vance said during a visit to Minneapolis.
However, school board chair Mary Granlund said ICE agents rejected multiple offers of care and attempted to draw the child’s mother out of the house, raising concerns the boy was used as leverage.
When asked whether the child was used as bait, Granlund replied, “Correct.”
Officials and Witnesses Describe Child’s Fear
Rachel James, a Columbia Heights city council member who witnessed the incident, said the child appeared terrified as officers drove away.
“He was frozen,” James said. “He wasn’t crying, but he looked completely paralyzed with fear.”
Prokosch denied claims that the father was in the country illegally, saying Minnesota records show no criminal history for the family. He said they were awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge at the time of the detention.