Minneapolis — At least four students, including a 5-year-old boy, were detained by U.S. immigration officers in a Minneapolis suburb this week, deepening tensions over a federal crackdown that has flooded the area with agents and sparked a legal challenge from the state.
The 5-year-old, identified by school officials as Liam Conejo Ramos, and his father were taken to a family detention facility in Dilley, Texas, according to attorney Marc Prokosch, who said the pair are asylum applicants and is seeking their release. The Department of Homeland Security said Liam’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, is in the country illegally but provided no details.
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Vice President JD Vance, visiting Minneapolis amid mounting protests over the presence of armed immigration officers, accused the media of misrepresenting the incident and defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He said officers were pursuing the boy’s father, who fled, leaving agents no choice but to take the child. “As the father of a five-year-old” himself, Vance said he was initially stunned by reports, adding, “I think to myself ‘Oh, my God, this is terrible. How did we arrest a five-year-old?’” He said after reviewing the circumstances he concluded that agents acted appropriately: “Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?”
School and local officials in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, offered a sharply different account. Superintendent Zena Stenvik said armed, masked ICE officers had apprehended four students this week — two 17-year-olds, a 10-year-old and Liam — and described the operations as traumatizing for families. “The onslaught of ICE activity in our community is inducing trauma and is taking a toll on our children,” she said.
Witnesses said Liam, wearing a blue hat and a Spider-Man backpack, watched as masked agents detained his father in the driveway after the two returned from preschool on Tuesday. School officials, a family adult and neighbors offered to take the boy, but ICE refused, said Mary Granlund, chair of the Columbia Heights school board, who added that school officials are authorized to take temporary custody when a parent is absent. The boy’s mother remained inside the home at her husband’s urging, likely to avoid detention, Granlund said.
Agents placed the child in the back seat of a black SUV and drove away, said Columbia Heights City Council member Rachel James, who witnessed the scene. “I can’t imagine what was going through Liam’s mind,” she said. “He was not crying, but he looked so scared.”
Prokosch disputed DHS’s assertion that Conejo Arias is in the country illegally, said Minnesota records show no criminal history for the family and said they are awaiting an immigration court hearing.
The detentions come amid President Donald Trump’s stepped-up enforcement operation in the Twin Cities, where about 3,000 federal officers have been deployed following the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Good, 37, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, by an immigration officer. Federal officials have described the operation as targeting dangerous criminals and immigration violators. Protesters have responded with observer patrols and whistle alerts to warn of ICE raids.
Minnesota officials have asked a federal judge for a temporary restraining order that would pause the ICE operation statewide; a hearing is set for Monday. The officer who shot Good, identified as Jonathan Ross, has not been suspended or charged. Trump administration officials have defended his actions as self-defense.
The episode has become a flashpoint in the broader national debate over immigration enforcement, child welfare and local authority. In Columbia Heights, school leaders said their priority is keeping students safe and in class. “The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken,” Granlund said. “At the end of the day, children should be in school with their classmates.”
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
