A 5-year-old boy arriving home from preschool in Minnesota was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said, making him the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb to be detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.
Federal agents took Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car in the family’s driveway Tuesday afternoon, Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik told reporters Wednesday. The officers told him to knock on the door to his home to see if other people were inside, “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” she said.
The father told the child’s mother, who was inside the home and has not been named, not to open the door, Stenvik told reporters Thursday.
School officials said the agents wouldn’t leave Liam with another adult who lives at the home or an official from the school district. But on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an online post that the father asked for the child to stay with him and that they are together at an immigration lockup in Dilley, Texas.
“Why detain a 5-year-old?” she asked. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday that “ICE did NOT target a child.” She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arresting the child’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who McLaughlin said is from Ecuador and in the U.S. illegally. He fled on foot, “abandoning his child,” she said.
“For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” 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.
Minnesota has become a major focus of federal immigration sweeps. Greg Bovino, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official who has been the face of the crackdowns, said immigration officers have made about 3,000 arrests in Minnesota in the last six weeks.
Source:AP
