New York. In the US state of Minnesota, a 5-year-old child was detained along with his father by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The child’s name is Liam Conejo Ramos, who is a student of Columbia Heights Public Schools. The incident took place on Tuesday afternoon, when the child was returning home from preschool. The agents caught both of them from a moving car. The agents asked the child to knock on the door of the house to find out if anyone else was there. The school has described this as using the child as bait. This family came to America in 2024 and they are facing an asylum case, there was no deportation order. The father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, is from Ecuador.

Following the incident, Liam and his father were taken to an immigration lockup in Dilley, Texas, where they are being held in a family detention room. School officials and neighbors offered to keep the child with them, but agents declined. According to the school, this is the fourth incident in recent weeks in the area where students from this school district have been detained. This includes two 17-year-olds, a 10-year-old, and now this 5-year-old. ICE operations have intensified in Minnesota, where nearly 3,000 arrests have been made in the past six weeks.

Agents are roaming around, there is an atmosphere of fear.

Agents are roaming around schools, behind buses and in the neighborhood. This has spread fear and trauma among the students. School attendance decreased by one-third in a day. The school community is shocked by this incident. Liam’s teacher described him as a kind and loving child and expressed concern about his classmates. The family’s lawyer Mark Prokosh is exploring legal options. The Department of Homeland Security says that the focus was on the arrest of the father, the child was not targeted and an officer remained with him for his safety. Vice President JD Vance also commented on this, but did not directly respond to the school’s claims.