What happened with the five year-old in Minnesota?
Executive summary
A five-year-old boy identified as Liam Conejo Ramos was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on January 20 in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, alongside his father, and both were later transported to a detention facility in Texas, according to school officials and multiple news reports [1] [2] [3]. Local school leaders say agents used the child as “bait” to draw other family members from their home, while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and White House officials say the child was abandoned by his father and was not targeted — witnesses and school staff dispute that account [1] [4] [5].
1. The scene in Columbia Heights: a child, a driveway and federal agents
Multiple outlets report the child was taken by ICE as he returned from preschool and was photographed standing next to agents and a vehicle; the image circulated widely and became central to public outrage [6] [2]. School district officials say the incident occurred on a driveway in the Minneapolis suburb and that the child and his father were subsequently flown to a detention center in San Antonio, Texas, more than 1,200 miles from the child’s home [7] [3].
2. School leaders: ‘used as bait’ and a community in fear
Columbia Heights Public Schools superintendent Zena Stenvik and other district officials publicly alleged ICE had used the five‑year‑old as “bait” to try to draw other family members from their home; the district says this case is one of four recent detentions in the same school system, heightening fear among families and prompting protests and school closures [1] [8] [7].
3. DHS and White House: ‘child was abandoned’ and agents were targeting adults
The Department of Homeland Security pushed back sharply, asserting ICE did not target a child and said the father, identified by DHS as Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, fled and “abandoned” the child — language repeated by administration allies and carried in conservative outlets — framing the operation as a lawful targeting of an adult immigration case [4] [9] [10].
4. Witnesses contest DHS’s timeline and describe pleas to release the child
Neighbors, school staff and witnesses told local reporters they begged federal agents to allow the boy to enter his home or be released to the school after his father was taken, and they dispute the characterization that the child was simply abandoned, creating a factual clash between on‑the‑ground witnesses and the official DHS narrative [5] [1].
5. The viral photograph and the politics of imagery
A photograph of the boy in a blue hat and small backpack standing blankly next to officers became a powerful visual in national coverage and protests, fueling outrage and political responses from Minnesota leaders and members of Congress while also drawing scrutiny and rebuttals from federal spokespeople who argued the image was being used to misrepresent the operation [2] [10] [4].
6. Broader enforcement campaign and its fallout
The detainment of the child occurred amid a wider DHS‑led surge of roughly 3,000 federal arrests in Minnesota under an initiative officials say targets criminal noncitizens; the concentrated enforcement has produced multiple reports of minors in the Columbia Heights district being taken into custody and has sparked local lawsuits, protests and polarized national commentary about tactics and priorities [3] [6] [7].
7. What remains unclear and what reporting cannot confirm
Open questions remain: the precise sequence of events at the moment of the father’s arrest, whether the child was given an opportunity to rejoin family inside the home before agents took him into custody, and the full legal rationale for transporting the child and his father to Texas; available reporting records conflicting accounts from school officials, eyewitnesses and DHS but does not produce independently verifiable body‑camera footage or a single undisputed chronology to reconcile them [5] [4] [1].