US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old boy named Liam Ramos on Tuesday as he returned home from school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, and transported him and his father to a detention centre in Texas, according to school officials.
The superintendent of the school district, Zena Stenvik, said at a press conference that Liam and his father were taken into custody in their driveway. She described how an agent made the boy knock on his own front door to see if anyone else was home, calling it 'using a five-year-old as bait'. Another adult in the home pleaded to care for Liam but was denied.
Attorney Marc Prokosch, representing the family, said they had an active asylum case and entered the US at a port of entry. He stated there was no deportation order and believed the father and son remained together in detention.
Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE was conducting a 'targeted operation' to arrest Liam's father, whom she called an 'illegal alien'. She claimed the father fled on foot, abandoning the child, and that an officer stayed with the boy for safety. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, she added.
Stenvik reported three other student detentions in the district over the past two weeks, including a 17-year-old taken from a car, a 17-year-old girl and her mother taken from an apartment, and a 10-year-old girl taken on her way to school.
