In brief
Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy, was taken by federal agents from his home as part of an immigration enforcement operation targeting his father. The incident raises questions about the use of children in such actions and highlights the impact of recent immigration sweeps in Minnesota. Advocates and school officials express their outrage over the detainment of minors, emphasizing the significant drop in school attendance in immigrant communities.
A 5-year-old boy arriving home from preschool in Minnesota was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said, making him the latest child caught up in the immigration enforcement surge that has riled the Twin Cities in recent weeks.
Federal agents took Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car while it was in the family’s driveway on Tuesday afternoon, Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said during a news conference Wednesday. The officers instructed him to knock on the door to his suburban Minneapolis home to check for other occupants, “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” she stated.
Stenvik noted that the family has an active asylum case and has not been ordered to leave the country. “Why detain a 5-year-old?” she questioned. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin clarified that “ICE did NOT target a child,” explaining that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was conducting an operation to arrest Liam’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who is from Ecuador and is in the U.S. illegally. McLaughlin mentioned that Conejo Arias fled on foot without the boy and assured that one of their officers stayed with Liam for his safety while others apprehended the father.
Stenvik reported that another adult from the household was present outside when both father and son were taken, but agents refused to leave Liam with that individual. There has been no immediate response from DHS regarding whether Conejo Arias requested to keep his son with him.
Liam and his father are currently being held in a family detention cell in Texas, according to Marc Prokosch, the family’s lawyer. Prokosch asserted, “Every step of their immigration process has been done correctly,” calling the situation “just cruelty.”
Minnesota has increasingly become the center of immigration sweeps by DHS-led agencies, with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official Greg Bovino announcing that 3,000 “of some of the most dangerous offenders” have been arrested in the state over the last six weeks.
Advocates like Julia Decker from the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota argued that there is no reliable means of knowing whether the government’s arrest statistics and characterizations of those detained are accurate. Liam is notably the fourth student from Columbia Heights Public Schools detained by ICE recently, with a 17-year-old student also taken on the same day, while two other students, aged 10 and 17, had been seized previously.
The school district, consisting of five schools and approximately 3,400 students from pre-K to 12th grade, primarily serves immigrant families, according to Stenvik. Attendance figures have declined over the past fortnight, with one day seeing about a third of students absent.
Ella Sullivan, Liam’s teacher, expressed her concern, describing him as “kind and loving” and highlighted that his classmates miss him: “All I want is for him to be safe and back here.”
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Associated Press reporter Kathy McCormack contributed to this story.
