Recommendations of the Editorial team
Tensions continue to escalate in Minnesota as ICE agents conduct targeted raids and arrest people on the streets. Now school officials in a suburb of Minneapolis report that ICE has massively shaken the community’s sense of security by specifically targeting students. Most recently, a five-year-old boy was arrested along with his father. He is one of several children taken into custody as part of US President Donald Trump’s immigration offensive.
“Just two hours ago, an ICE vehicle drove onto our school grounds,” Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said at a news conference Wednesday.
“ICE officers are roaming our neighborhoods. They are circling our schools. Following our school buses. Driving into our parking lots. And taking our children. The sense of safety in our community and at our schools has been shattered. Our hearts are broken.”
Arrest of a child in front of his parents’ house
According to Stenvik and a report from local station KARE11, ICE officers arrested five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos on Tuesday. They picked him up from a running car in front of his family’s home. His father, whom the U.S. Department of Homeland Security later identified as Alexander Conejo Arias, was also arrested. According to the family’s attorney, Marc Prokosch, both are currently being held at a deportation center in Texas. Prokosch confirmed to the Washington Post that the family were not US citizens, but were in ongoing asylum proceedings and there was no deportation order against them.
In recent weeks, ICE raids have been repeatedly followed by public statements from the Department of Homeland Security celebrating arrests. However, these accounts often differ significantly from eyewitness reports. In the case of Alexander and Liam, the family’s lawyer and representatives of the school system report that the five-year-old was specifically used as “bait.” He was supposed to knock on the front door to lure other people out of the house.
In a statement shared on social media, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson denied those allegations and instead said the child was “abandoned” by his father. ICE officers stayed with him for security reasons.
Escalation after deadly operation in Minneapolis
The latest arrest came just two weeks after a deadly incident in which ICE officers shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Good during a confrontation with protesters.
The incident caused tensions to explode in the city and sparked nationwide outrage over the actions and training of officers. In the days that followed, arrests continued unabated – including the detention of children. According to Stenvik, Liam is the fourth Columbia Heights Public Schools student to be arrested.
Ella Sullivan, Liam’s preschool teacher, described the boy as friendly and loving. “His classmates miss him,” she said at Wednesday’s news conference. “And all I wish is for him to be safe and come back to us.”
Allegations of systematic violations of the law
Protests and neighborhood backlash continue to grow in Minneapolis and surrounding regions, particularly as ICE officials say critics are increasingly disregarding constitutional boundaries and their own internal policies. The Associated Press reported Wednesday on an internal ICE memorandum that allows officers to enter homes without a warrant. This constitutes a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment and previous ICE guidelines.
ICE also appears to be redefining existing procedures when it comes to dealing with children. According to the Department of Homeland Security, parents who are arrested are usually given the option to leave their children with a trusted adult or take them into custody. However, Stenvik and the family’s attorney said ICE refused to release the boy to anyone present at the home.
A similar case occurred two weeks earlier. At that time, a ten-year-old girl was arrested with her mother on the way to school. According to CBS News, the girl called her father and said officers were dropping her off at school. However, when the father arrived there, he learned that both his wife and daughter had been arrested.
“They followed every single step of their immigration process exactly as was required of them,” Prokosch said Wednesday. “What is happening here is nothing other than cruelty.”