Federal officers detain a 5-year-old boy who a school official says was used as 'bait'
Minneapolis (AP): 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 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 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 lockup in Dilley, Texas.
The family, who came to the U.S. 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.”
McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday that “ICE did NOT target a child.” She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arresting the child's father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who McLaughlin said is from Ecuador and in the U.S. illegally. He fled on foot, “abandoning his child,” she said.
“For the child's safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” McLaughlin said, adding that parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or have them placed with a person of their choosing.
Minnesota has become a major focus of federal immigration sweeps. Greg Bovino, a U.S. 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.
Others offered to take the child
---------------------------------
Stenvik suggested that the father did not run. She said another adult who lives at the home was outside when the father and son were taken, but agents wouldn't leave Liam with that person.
Mary Granlund, school board chair for Columbia Heights Public Schools, told reporters 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 neighbor from across the street tell the agents they had papers authorizing them to take care of Liam on behalf of the parents. The agents ignored them, James said.
The family's lawyer, Marc Prokosch, said 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.
Vice President JD Vance met with Minneapolis leaders Thursday and 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?” said Vance, noting that he's the parent of a 5-year-old.
Vance wasn't asked about why immigration officers allegedly wouldn't leave the boy with the other adult who lives at the home and offered to take him.
Conditions at the Dilley lockup
----------------------------------
Families are reporting that children are malnourished, extremely ill, and suffering profoundly from prolonged detention at the Dilley lockup, where conditions are worse than ever, said Leecia Welch, chief legal counselor 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.
Students kept home after their classmates were detained
------------------------------------------------------------
Columbia Heights Public Schools has five schools and about 3,400 students from pre-K to 12th grade, according to its website. Most come from immigrant families, Stenvik said.
Before Liam, A 17-year-old was taken Tuesday while heading to school, and a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old have also been taken, Stenvik said. Attendance has dropped over the past two weeks, including one day where about one-third of the students were out from school, she said.
“Over the last few weeks, ICE agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lot multiple times and taking our kids,” said Stenvik, adding that this is causing “trauma.”
Ella Sullivan, Liam's teacher, described him as “kind and loving.”
“His classmates miss him,” she said. "And all I want is for him to be safe and back here.”
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
