Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a 5-year-old on his way home from school on Tuesday and used him as “bait” to knock on his front door to see if anyone was home, according to school officials in Minnesota.
Liam Conejo Ramos, a preschooler, is one of at least four children from the Columbia Heights Public Schools district in suburban Minneapolis who have been detained this month, Zena Stenvik, the superintendent for the district, saidin a press conference on Wednesday.
“Why detain a 5-year-old?” Stenvik asked. “You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
Liam and his father were arriving home on Tuesday when ICE agents approached them and detained the father, according to a recounting of the incident by school officials. In situations where a parent is being detained and a child is present, the Department of Homeland Security has claimed that ICE’s policy is to see if parents want to be removed with their children or, if not, agents then place the child with someone the parent advises. According to school officials, that’s not what happened on Tuesday.
“Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child and was refused,” Stenvik told reporters. Instead, an agent “took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door, and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.”
According to the family’s lawyer, Liam and his father are now in DHS custody in San Antonio, Texas. Family members said they didn’t know where the boy was for around 24 hours.
DHS claims that the father attempted to flee when approached before being detained. In a social media post, the ICE account wrote that Liam was “ABANDONED by their criminal illegal alien parent.”
Since federal immigration agents descended on the Twin Cities en masse over a month ago, the Columbia Heights district, where more than half the students are Latino, has seen a steep decrease in student attendance, including on one recent day when a third of students didn’t show up. Administrators say they are worried about the safety of their students to be outside during recess or to attend after-school events like basketball games, as ICE has repeatedly approached or been near campus.
And it’s not just Columbia Heights.
After ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Nicole Good in her car earlier this month, schools in and around Minneapolis have cancelled classes or shifted to online learning. Minneapolis Public Schools is allowing for remote learning through at least February 12 after a district spokesperson said they had received “multiple threats impacting several MPS schools.” The decision came shortly after US Border Patrol agents, hours after Good was killed, went to a high school, tackled people, and sprayed a chemical weapon. The charter school where one of Good’s children attends also decided to switch to online learning, according to reporting from Sahan Journal, after people on the right started attacking the school and claiming it pushed a left-wing agenda.
The recent apprehensions of children near Minneapolis are just one part of a massive detention campaign involving minors since President Donald Trump returned to office. According to reporting from ProPublica based on government data, ICE placed around 600 immigrant children in federal shelters in 2025. That’s more than the previous four years combined.
Liam and his father were sent to Texas likely within hours of their arrest, their lawyer said. For the preschooler, according to reporting from Sahan Journal, that meant leaving behind his things in his school cubby, where he kept a winter hat, a blanket, and a small stuffed turtle.
