A five-year-old Ecuadorean child, Liam Conejo Ramos, was detained by US immigration authorities in Minnesota shortly after returning home from preschool, in an incident that has intensified criticism of the Donald Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement. According to school officials, Liam is one of four minors taken into custody in recent operations, alongside two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old, underscoring growing concerns about the impact of enforcement actions on children.
Marc Prokosch, the lawyer representing the Ramos family, said both Liam and his father were taken into custody despite being legally present in the United States as asylum applicants. He confirmed that they were transferred to a family detention centre in Dilly, Texas. The family, school authorities said, arrived in the US in 2024 and currently has an active asylum case, with no court order directing them to leave the country.
Videos circulating widely on social media showed masked and heavily armed ICE agents detaining the child outside his home. Liam, wearing a blue cap and carrying a Spider-Man backpack, appeared frightened as officers apprehended his father in the driveway moments after they arrived home from preschool. Witnesses told Reuters that the boy watched silently as agents surrounded them, an image that has since sparked outrage.
School officials alleged that after taking the father into custody, agents attempted to use the child as leverage to draw his mother out of the house. Mary Granlund, chair of the Columbia Heights school board, said Liam’s father had urged his wife to remain inside to avoid being detained herself. She added that school staff, neighbours and an adult present at the home all offered to take temporary custody of the child, but ICE officials refused those requests.
The Department of Homeland Security rejected claims that the child was deliberately targeted. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the father fled during the arrest and left his son behind, forcing officers to remain with the child for his safety. She added that the father requested that Liam stay with him and that both are now together at the detention facility in Texas. Vice President JD Vance echoed this account, arguing that officers had no alternative under the circumstances.
The incident has triggered renewed backlash against immigration enforcement practices, particularly in Minnesota. Zena Stenvik, superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public School District, questioned why a young child would be detained at all, saying ICE activity has increasingly spilled into neighbourhoods and school spaces. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also condemned the episode, saying a five-year-old should be at home with his family and not treated as part of an enforcement operation, calling the detention both shocking and unacceptable.
