Who is Liam Ramos, 5-year-old detained by ICE in Minnesota?

Minnesota is in an uproar.

This comes after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy, and his father while returning home from school.

Ramos and his father have now been taken to an ICEfacility in Texas. Ramos is the fourth student of the Minneapolis suburb, including two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old, to be detained by ICEin recent weeks.

Minneapolis has hit headlines ever since an Ice agent shot and killed Rene Good, a mother of three, earlier this month. The city has witnessed protests against the immigration agents, leading US President Donald Trump to threaten to invoke the Insurrection Act.

But what happened? Who is Ramos? What has the reaction been?

Let’s take a closer look.

What happened?

According to reports, Ramos and his father Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias were detained by masked and armed Ice agents after they returned home from his school.

The Department of Homeland Security has claimed that Adrian is “an illegal alien from Ecuador”. However, those close to the family, including their lawyers, say that they arrived in America in 2024 and are currently in the legal process of applying for asylum.

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Photos show the masked and heavily armed ICE agents nabbing the five-year-old, who is in a blue hat and has a Spider-Man backpack. The child, who looks visibly afraid, is seen watching agents arrest his father from the driveway of their home.

Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik told reporters on Wednesday that federal agents grabbed Liam from a running car in the family’s driveway on Tuesday afternoon. 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 to avoid being detained herself, Stenvik told reporters on Thursday.

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Mary Granlund, the chair of the Columbia Heights school board, added that school officials, an adult from the Ramos family home and all of their neighbours offered to take the child, but ICE officials refused. Granlund told reporters on Thursday that she had told agents she would take the child before they left with him.

Rachel James, a Columbia Heights city council member who lives nearby the family, said she saw another neighbour from across the street tell the agents they had papers authorising them to take care of Liam on behalf of the parents. The agents ignored them, James said.

Liam’s older brother, a middle schooler, came home 20 minutes later to find his father and brother missing, Stenvik added.

The family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, was quoted as saying by The Guardian, “The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out. They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals.”

Prokosch said on Thursday that he assumes Liam and his father are in a family holding cell but that they have not been able to have “direct contact” with them.

“We’re looking at our legal options to see if we can free them either through some legal mechanisms or through moral pressure,” he said at a news conference.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin denied that the agency used the child as bait.

“ICE did NOT target a child,” McLaughlin told The Independent. “As agents approached the driver, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias fled on foot — abandoning his child. For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias.”

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.

“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,” McLaughlin continued. “This is consistent with past administrations’ immigration enforcement.”

Fourth incident in two weeks

This isn’t the first time the community has been targeted. According to school authorities, a 17-year-old Columbia Heights High School student “was taken by armed and masked agents” on their way to school on the same day as Liam and his father were detained.

“The student was removed from their car and taken away,” the school said.

Last week, ICE agents “pushed their way into an apartment and detained a 17-year-old student and her mother.” Two weeks ago, a 10-year-old 4th grader was “taken by ICE agents on her way to one of our elementary schools with her mother."

“During the arrest, the child called her father to tell him the ICE agents were bringing her to school. The father immediately came to the school to find that both his daughter and wife had been taken,” school authorities said. They added that the mother and child were taken to a detention camp in Texas.

What has the reaction been?

School authorities are flummoxed.

“Why detain a five-year-old?” Superintendent Zena Stenvik was quoted as saying. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”

“Over the last few weeks, ICE agents have been roaming our neighbourhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lot multiple times and taking our kids,” Stenvik said, adding that this is causing “trauma.”

The Independent quoted Stenvik as saying the incidents have shattered “the sense of safety in our community” and staff and students have been left “shaken.”

“Staff wear brave faces throughout the day for their students, while facing so many uncertainties,” Stenvik added. “As soon as the school day ends, they are not sure if they will see their students tomorrow morning while taking attendance.”

Ella Sullivan, Liam’s teacher, described him as “kind and loving”, and “a very friendly” student who “brightens the room” when he comes into class. “His friends haven’t asked about him yet, but I know that they’ll catch on,” she said. “All I want is for him to be back here and safe.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has taken to X to slam the Trump administration.

“Liam Ramos is just a baby. He should be at home with his family, not used as bait by ICE and held in a Texas detention centre. I am outraged, and you should be too,” she wrote.

However, the administration remains unmoved.

Vice President JD Vance, who met with Minneapolis leaders on Thursday, said he heard the “terrible story” but later learned the boy was only detained, not arrested.

“Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” Vance asked, noting that he’s the parent of a 5-year-old.

Greg Bovino, a US Customs and Border Protection official who has been the face of the crackdowns, said immigration officers have made about 3,000 arrests in Minnesota in the last six weeks.

Families are reporting that children are malnourished, extremely ill, and suffering profoundly from prolonged detention at the Dilley lock-up, where conditions are worse than ever, said Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at Children’s Rights. Welch visited the facility last week as part of a lawsuit over the welfare of immigrant children in federal custody.

“The number of children had skyrocketed and significant numbers of children had been detained for over 100 days,” Welch said. The administration in December acknowledged that about 400 children had faced extended detention.

“Nearly every child we spoke to was sick,” Welch said.

With inputs from agencies