US immigration officials have detained four children, including a 5-year-old, from Minneapolis suburb, said the school officials.
The five-year-old boy was detained after he returned from school. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials shifted Liam Conejo Ramos, a pre-schooler, and his father to a Texas detention center. They were taken into custody while in their driveway. Liam, an Ecuadorean boy, turned five recently.
Zena Stenvik, superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public School District, told mediapersons that ICE officials, wearing masks and carrying arms, had apprehended four students as of this week. The remaining three children include two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old.
The detentions are a part of US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. As many as 3,000 federal law enforcement officers were deployed to the Minneapolis area, and people here have been living in tension since an ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good, a US citizen who has three children, on January 7.
The Department of Homeland Security said they had taken Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, into custody as they were living illegally in the country. Further details about Alexander have not been provided.
According to eyewitnesses Liam was wearing a blue hat and a Spider-Man backpack when masked agents took his father from the driveway of their home after he returned from preschool on Tuesday. The ICE officials also attempted to use the boy as a bait to bring his mother out of their house.
Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance told the media that the immigration officers have been pursuing Alexander had run away leaving them with no option than take the abandoned boy into custody. “what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien?,” Vance asked during his visit to Minneapolis, showing his support to the ICE officials.
Image Credit – Associated Press
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