Federal agents in Minnesota grabbed a 5-year-old as he returned home from school and took him to a facility in Texas, local officials and a family lawyer said.
Liam Conejo Ramos is the fourth student from the Columbia Heights School District, just north of Minneapolis, to have been swept up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, District Superintendent Zena Stenvik said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Stenvik claimed Liam was detained in his family’s driveway after being driven home by his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, whom the Department of Homeland Security said was the subject of a “targeted” ICE operation on Tuesday and was also detained.
DHS confirmed Thursday that both father and son are being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas. Marc Prokosch, a lawyer representing Liam’s family, said he’s only been able to make “indirect” contact with Arias thus far, but sought to speak with him soon.
The superintendent said ICE officers used the preschooler in an attempt to draw other family members out of their home.
