Federal officers detained a 5-year-old boy as he returned home from preschool in Minnesota and took his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said. Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said the boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, was taken by federal agents along with his father on Tuesday afternoon in the family’s driveway.
Stenvik said the officers told the boy to knock on the door to the home, describing it as “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.” She said the father told the child’s mother, who was inside the house and not named, not to open the door.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an online post that the father asked for the child to stay with him and that they were together at an immigration lockup in Dilley, Texas. McLaughlin also said in a statement that ICE was arresting Liam’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, and that he is from Ecuador and in the U.S. illegally. She said he fled on foot, “abandoning his child,” and that “ICE did NOT target a child.”
McLaughlin said one ICE officer remained with the child while other officers apprehended Conejo Arias, and said parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or to have them placed with a person of their choosing. Stenvik disputed the account, saying her understanding was that another adult was outside when the father and son were taken but that agents would not leave Liam with that person or with an official from the school district.
Stenvik said the family came to the U.S. in 2024 and has an active asylum case and had not been ordered to leave the country. She also asked, “Why detain a 5-year-old?” and said she could not understand how the child could be classified as a violent criminal. She said Liam was the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb to be detained by immigration officers in recent weeks, and that attendance had dropped over the prior two weeks.
As the case drew attention, Mary Granlund, the school board chair for Columbia Heights Public Schools, said she had told agents she would take the child before the officers left with him. Rachel James, a Columbia Heights city council member who lives nearby, said she saw another neighbor tell agents they had papers authorizing them to take care of Liam on the parents’ behalf, and that the agents ignored those offers.
The family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, said Thursday that he assumed Liam and his father were in a family holding cell but had not been able to have “direct contact” with them. Prokosch said he was looking at legal options to try to free them and also at “moral pressure.”
Vice President JD Vance met with Minneapolis leaders Thursday and said he heard the “terrible story,” though he later said he learned the boy was detained, not arrested. Vance said, “Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” He added that he is the parent of a 5-year-old and was not asked about why officers allegedly would not leave the boy with another adult.
Reports about the detention facility in Dilley also surfaced as the case was discussed publicly. Leecia Welch, chief legal counselor at Children’s Rights, said families reported children at the lockup were malnourished, extremely ill, and suffering from prolonged detention, and said she visited the facility last week as part of a lawsuit over the welfare of immigrant children in federal custody. Welch said “The number of children had skyrocketed” and that significant numbers of children had been detained for over 100 days, and said administration officials acknowledged in December that about 400 children had faced extended detention. She added: “Nearly every child we spoke to was sick.”
In the days after Liam was taken, school staff said children were staying home and class attendance fell. Stenvik said ICE agents had been roaming neighborhoods, circling schools, following buses, entering parking lots multiple times, and taking children, calling it “trauma.” Ella Sullivan, Liam’s teacher, described him as “kind and loving,” and said, “His classmates miss him,” adding, “And all I want is for him to be safe and back here.”