A photo of a five-year-old boy being detained by US Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota has sparked indignation online after he was taken into custody with his father on Tuesday.
The superintendent of the school district, Zena Stenvik, said that he is one of four children to be taken into ICE custody in the last two weeks in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.
Liam Conejo Ramos was returning home from preschool with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, when ICE agents approached them in their driveway. The father reportedly attempted to flee on foot, but was subsequently taken into custody.
According to Stenvik, Liam was used as “bait” by the ICE agents, who asked him to knock on the door of his own house to see if anyone else was home.
“You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” she said in a press conference from the school after the incident.
She added that his brother returned from middle school 20 minutes later to find that his father and his younger brother had been taken.
The photographs shared by school officials, who arrived at the scene after hearing local reports of the incident, quickly began to circulate on social media.
In the first photograph, a visibly frightened Liam is seen standing next to the car, wearing a knitted blue hat with floppy ears and carrying his spiderman school backpack.
In another photograph, he is seen standing in front of the door of his house with a masked ICE agent behind him.
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Several US public officials have condemned the incident.
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar posted a link to the school press conference on her X profile (formerly Twitter), describing the action as “absolutely vile”.
Peggy Flanagan, lieutenant governor of Minnesota, wrote: “No 5-year-old makes us unsafe. Targeting children – our babies – is beyond the pale”.
The popular conservative account Republicans Against Trump shared a post on X criticising the agents’ use of the boy “as bait”.
Other users expressed their emotional reactions to the viral photo.
Erica Meltzer, the editor of Chalkbeat, wrote: “A small stuffed turtle, a water bottle, and a blanket fill 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos’ cubby. A gray winter hat hangs from his hook. A worksheet to help him trace the letter W waits for him at his desk.”
British broadcaster and author Narinder Kaur described it as “utterly heartbreaking”.
According to ICE’s official policy, it is standard procedure for parents to choose if they wish for the child to be taken with them, or if they should be placed in the care of a safe person designated by the parent.
Specifically, unless the enforcement agents are “effectuating an enforcement action against the minor,” it is stated that they “should not, under any circumstances, take custody of or transport the minor”.
Eyewitnesses recount that the adult in the house where they were detained repeatedly pleaded with the federal agents to leave Liam in their care, which was denied.
This has raised questions as to why he was taken into custody with his father if there was a suitable adult present at the scene.
In response to a query from Middle East Eye, an ICE spokesperson said in a statement that “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement.”
The agency also said that they “did NOT target a child”, and said that there was a “targeted operation to arrest” the child’s father, described as an “an illegal alien from Ecuador”.
“[The father] fled on foot – abandoning his child,” the statement said. “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended [him].”
The attorney representing the family, Mark Prokosch, told the press that the father and child are likely being held in a detention facility in San Antonio, Texas.
He said they have been following the legal asylum application process and had arrived through a legal point of entry. He added that there was no order of deportation against them.
The widespread reactions to the incident come amid growing tensions in the US between federal agents, protesters and community members after an ICE agent fatally shot an unarmed woman, Renee Good, at point-blank range in Minneapolis earlier this month.
The US government has continued to crack down on anti-ICE protests, as videos of agents arresting US citizens and testimonies of excessive use of force have become increasingly common.
