ICE detains 5-year-old in Minneapolis as school officials claim child was used as ‘bait’

A 5-year-old boy arriving home from preschool in Minnesota was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said, making him the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb to be detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.Federal agents took Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car in the family’s driveway Tuesday afternoon, Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik told reporters on Wednesday. The officers told him to knock on the door to his home to see if other people were inside, “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” she said.The father told the child’s mother, who was inside the home and has not been named, not to open the door, Stenvik told reporters on Thursday.School officials said the agents wouldn’t leave Liam with another adult who lives at the home or an official from the school district. But on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an online post that the father asked for the child to stay with him and that they are together at an immigration lock-up in Dilley, Texas.The family, who came to the US in 2024, has an active asylum case and had not been ordered to leave the country, Stenvik said.“Why detain a 5-year-old?” she asked. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”