Boy, five, ‘used as bait’ to detain father in US immigration crackdown

A five-year-old boy arriving home from pre-school in Minnesota has been taken by US agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said.

Federal agents took Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car while it was in the family’s driveway on Tuesday afternoon, Columbia Heights Public Schools superintendent Zena Stenvik said.

The officers then told him to knock on the door to his home to see if other people were inside, “essentially using five 5-year-old as bait”, she said.

Ms Stenvik said the family has an active asylum case and has not been ordered to leave the country.

“Why detain a five-year-old?” she asked. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “ICE did not target a child.”

She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was conducting an operation to arrest the child’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who Ms McLaughlin said is from Ecuador and in the US illegally. He fled on foot without the boy, she claimed.

“For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” Ms 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.

Ms Stenvik said another adult who lives at the home was outside when the father and son were taken, but agents would not leave Liam with that person.

Liam and his father were being held in a family holding cell in Texas, Marc Prokosch, the family’s lawyer, said during the news conference.

“Every step of their immigration process has been doing what they’ve been asked to do,” Mr Prokosch said of the family’s asylum claim. “So this is just cruelty.”

Minnesota has become a major focus of immigration sweeps by DHS-led agencies. Greg Bovino, a US Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of the crackdowns in Minneapolis and other cities, said 3,000 “of some of the most dangerous offenders” have been arrested in Minnesota in the last six weeks.

Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Centre of Minnesota, said advocates have no way of knowing whether the government’s arrest numbers and descriptions of the people in custody are accurate.

Liam is the fourth student from Columbia Heights Public Schools who has been detained by ICE in recent weeks, said Ms Stenvik. A 17-year-old student was taken on Tuesday while heading to school, and a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old have also been taken, she said.

The district is made up of five schools and about 3,400 students from pre-K to 12th grade, according to its website. The majority of the students come from immigrant families, according to Ms Stenvik.

She said they have noticed their attendance drop over the past two weeks, including one day where they had about one-third of their students out from school.

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.”