Federal immigration agents detained 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian from their Columbia Heights, Minnesota home Tuesday, school officials said, marking the fourth child from their school district to be detained in recent weeks.
The case is part of an escalating federal immigration enforcement sweep that has drawn scrutiny from school officials and raised questions about appropriate use of tactics in enforcement actions.
How the Detention Unfolded
Superintendent Zena Stenvik said agents took the boy from a running car in the family’s driveway and asked him to knock on the door to check if other people were inside. The officers were “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” she said. The father told his wife, who was inside the home, not to open the door, Stenvik said.
When the father and son were taken into custody, another adult living at the home offered to take the child, and school board chair Mary Granlund said she told agents she would take him. The agents declined and took the boy into custody along with his father, Stenvik said. A neighbor saw another neighbor offer documentation authorizing them to care for the child, said Rachel James, a Columbia Heights city council member. The agents ignored the offer, James said.
The Department of Homeland Security offered a different account. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the father asked for the child to stay with him and that “ICE did NOT target a child.” Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias is from Ecuador and in the United States illegally, she said. He “fled on foot, abandoning his child,” according to McLaughlin’s statement.
“For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” McLaughlin said. She added that parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or have them placed with a person of their choosing.
Both father and son are now held at an immigration detention facility in Dilley, Texas, according to the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch. The lawyer said he assumes they are in a family holding cell but that they have not been able to have direct contact with them.
“We’re looking at our legal options to see if we can free them either through some legal mechanisms or through moral pressure,” Prokosch said at a news conference.
The family came to the United States in 2024 with an active asylum case and had not been ordered to leave the country, Stenvik said. “Why detain a 5-year-old?” she asked. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
Schools and Families Under Pressure
The detention has heightened concerns in Columbia Heights Public Schools, where most students are from immigrant families. Before Tuesday, a 17-year-old was detained while heading to school, and a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old have also been taken in recent weeks, Stenvik said.
The detentions have affected school attendance. Over the past two weeks, attendance dropped noticeably, with one day when about one-third of the students were absent. “Over the last few weeks, ICE agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lot multiple times and taking our kids,” Stenvik said, adding that this is causing “trauma.”
Ella Sullivan, Liam’s teacher, described the boy as “kind and loving.” She said that “his classmates miss him” and “all I want is for him to be safe and back here.”
Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis Thursday and acknowledged hearing the “terrible story” about the detention. But he later said the boy was detained, not arrested. “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?” Vance said, noting that he is the parent of a 5-year-old.
Vance did not address questions about why immigration officers refused to leave the boy with the other adult in the home or with the school official who offered to take him.
Detention Facility Conditions
At the Dilley, Texas facility where the boy and his father are being held, conditions have drawn concern from legal advocates. Leecia Welch, chief legal counselor at Children’s Rights, visited the facility last week as part of a lawsuit over the welfare of immigrant children in federal custody.
Welch said families are reporting that children are malnourished, extremely ill, and suffering from prolonged detention. “The number of children had skyrocketed and significant numbers of children had been detained for over 100 days,” Welch said. “Nearly every child we spoke to was sick,” she added.
The enforcement actions in Minnesota have intensified. Greg Bovino, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official who has been visible in the crackdowns, said immigration officers have made about 3,000 arrests in Minnesota in the last six weeks.