Top Homeland Security officials hit back Friday at viral claims that a 5-year-old boy was arrested and then used a “bait” for ICE to detain his mom in Minnesota earlier this week.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) head Marcos Charles said that the little boy, identified as preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos, was abandoned in a car by his illegal migrant father as federal officers attempted to arrest the parent Tuesday as part of a targeted operation in the city of Columbia Heights.
Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias fled ICE on foot, leaving his son behind, the ICE official said, stressing the child was not the target — after a flurry of criticism from anti-ICE activists and Democrats.
As officers rushed to apprehend Arias, an officer stayed with the child, whom ICE attempted to reunite with other family members when they knocked on the boy’s home.
“The people refused to take him in and open the door,” Charles said.
“Let me say it again, they saw the young boy and refused to open the door and take him back … I know for a fact [officers] were heartbroken to see the child’s own family leave him behind.”
Charles noted the agents cared for the child for hours and got him a meal from a drive-in restaurant.
Father and son are now in an ICE facility in Texas, pending deportation proceedings.
DHS officials said Arias, an Ecuadorian national, was in the country illegally after he was released by the Biden administration – an assertion disputed by a family lawyer.
When asked if the father had a criminal history in the US, Charles said he was in the country illegally and that there was an order to remove him.
A lawyer for the family said it not appear that Arias had a criminal record in Minnesota.
DHS’s strong rebuttal on Friday came after a photo shot across the internet –- and outrage soon followed — showing Liam standing next to a police vehicle in a winter hat and with a Spiderman backpack on.
Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stevik claimed this week that ICE asked the child to knock on the door and was “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait” when officers approached the house.
The local school chief also said the father told the child’s mother not to open the door and claimed agents wouldn’t leave the child with another adult who lives at the school and a school district official.
“Why detain a 5-year-old?” she asked.“You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
A lawyer for the family, Marc Prokosh, said at a Thursday press conference the migrants presented themselves to border officers in Texas in December 2024 to apply for asylum.
“These are not illegal aliens,” Prokosch said, per CNN. “They came properly. They came legally, and are pursuing a legal pathway.”
Top DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed Thursday officers told the alleged mother inside the home she would not be taken into custody.
The viral image and assertions have been the latest rallying cry for opponents of President Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown, especially in Minnesota.
Here’s the latest on the Minneapolis ICE protests
“In Minneapolis, ICE arrested a 5-year-old coming home from preschool and tried to use him as human bait,” the Democratic National Committee posted on social media Thursday as they ratcheted up the rhetoric against ICE.
“His teacher describes him as “a bright young student. These Monsters are sick.”
Former presidential candidate Kamala Harris also said she was outraged.
“Liam Ramos is just a baby. He should be at home with his family, not used as bait by ICE and held in a Texas detention center,” the former veep said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also repeated assertions from school officials, and argued the agency should be defunded. Fellow far-left House Rep. Ayanna Pressley weighed in, posting on X that, “ICE is kidnapping five year olds.
“I need you to look at Liam’s sweet face and see your own child. Don’t look away.”
Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino argued at Friday’s press conference defended keeping Liam in an ICE family facility with his father, stressing the feds’ wants to keep families together.
“Many American citizens are separated when they’re arrested, say by the Minneapolis police department or any other police department, they are separated from their children when they’re arrested,” he said.
With Post wires.
