A stark visual from the streets of Minneapolis, USA, went viral this week. In an unprecedented development, a 5-year-old preschooler named Liam Conejo Ramos was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as he was coming back home from school.

Caught on camera just steps away from the boy’s home, the haunting scene was ultimately circulated all over the Internet. The visuals set against the fiercely cold and snow-covered backdrop of Columbia Heights, a suburb in Minneapolis, captured the young boy bundled up in winter clothes, a blue knit bunny hat with floppy ears.

Even top politicians in the US couldn’t take their eyes off the heart-rending picture of 5-year-old Liam Ramos’ Spider-Man backpack’s handle being held by a masked federal agent. Standing in the street, the preschooler is pictured staring ahead with a blank look as his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, is also taken into federal custody.

From the driveway of their home in suburban Minneapolis, the father-son duo was transported on a plane to a family detention facility in Texas. Just 20 minutes later, Liam’s brother, a middle schooler, came home to find his father and brother missing.

ALSO READ

The shocking photo was one of two images released by school officials, as the state of Minnesota has now emerged as one of top targets of the Donald Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. The incident incited yet another discordant clash between the left and right over two weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

School official says 5-year-old was ‘used as bait’

At a press conference held after Liam and his father were detained, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, publicly revealed that the 5-year-old was the fourth child from the school district to be taken away by immigration authorities in over just two weeks.

Superintendent Zena Stenvik, who claims to have visited Liam’s home after learning of the detentions, said that an agent had pulled the young boy out of the car. He is said to have been told to knock at his own door to “see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait,” as per the school official’s statement at the conference.

Stenvik further shared that another adult present at the premises was outside during the encounter and pleaded to take care of Liam. Despite their attempts to prevent the boy’s detention, they were denied any respite, as per the superintendent’s account.

How did Homeland Security respond to Liam Ramos’ ICE detention?

Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement on Wednesday night, saying that ICE was conducting a “targeted operation” to apprehend Liam’s father. She has since described the 5-year-old boy’s father an “illegal alien.”

Further re-asserting, she said, “ICE did NOT target a child,” alleging Liam’s father “fled on foot – abandoning his child.” As far as the official DHS stance goes, “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended [his father].”

McLaughlin also maintained, “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.”

Despite school officials suggesting that an adult in Liam Ramos’ home had said they would take the child, while another relative outside had “begged” to take him, Laughlin contradicted the claims. Per her account, officers tried to get the 5-year-old’s mother to take him, but she refused.

Marcos Charles, the acting executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, in turn, similarly maintained that his officers did everything to reunite Liam Ramos with his family.

On Friday, senior Homeland Security officials offered an update on Liam’s situation after his detention had incited inflammatory outrage by officials and netizens alike. At a news conference outside Minneapolis, Gregory Bovino, who is leading President Trump’s Border Patrol operations, said the 5-year-old was being “well cared for” in a Texas detention centre with his father.

“That child is in the least restrictive setting possible,” the Border Patrol official shared, as per the New York Times. Further defending the federal authorities in light of Tuesday’s detention, he said ICE officer and Border Patrol agents are “experts in dealing with children… Not because we want to be, but because we have to be.”

The agency also claimed officers “took care of the child, got him McDonald’s and played him his favourite music to comfort him.”

ALSO READ

Liam Ramos’ immigration status revealed

According to CNN, the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, has since disclosed that Liam and his family’s origins trace back to Ecuador. He further detailed that the family was pursuing asylum claims and had presented itself to border officials in Texas in December 2024 despite the DHS labelling him an “illegal alien.”

Their claims of pursuing a legal process to obtain status in the US were, however, still pending. “These are not illegal aliens,” their lawyer stated, as per CNN.

“They were following all the established protocols, pursuing their claim for asylum, showing up for their court hearings, and posed no safety, no flight risk and never should have been detained.”

Meanwhile, Pastor Sergio Amezcua, who has been helping Liam’s mother since the detention said that the woman was simply “terrified” to step out because of the agents outside her door, according to CNN. “ICE agents were trying to use the baby to get her to come out of her house, but the neighbors … advised her not to do it,” Amezcua highlighted.

ICE backlash grows after child’s detention

Amid exacerbated tensions over the Trump administration immigration operation in Minneapolis, former US Vice President Kamala Harris joined the ranks of people outraged by the child’s detainment.

In an X post, Harris wrote, “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 center.”

“I am outraged, and you should be too,” she added.

Tricia McLaughin has since responded to Harris’ tweet as well, calling it a “horrific smear,” as officials maintain that the ICE did not target or Liam Ramos as “bait.”

Hillary Clinton also took to her X account this week and said: “Enforcing the law is one thing. Terrorising a population, using children as pawns, is another. My heart aches for Liam Ramos and his family.”

US Senator Tammy Duckworth wrote online: “ICE snatched him and his father on the way home from school, then used him as bait to target his family. A family who followed the rules. A child as bait. Their cruelty knows no end.”

As established by aforementioned statements, federal authorities have vehemently spoken out against backlash arising from the left. Even Vice President JD Vance joined the DHS in defending ICE’s action, pressing that the officers were targeting the boy’s father over his undocumented status in the US.

“Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?” he said on Thursday after a closed-door meeting in Minneapolis with federal agents and others. “If the argument is that you can’t arrest people who have violated the law because they have children, then every single parent is going to be completely given immunity from every being the subject of law enforcement.”