A 5-year-old Minnesota boy who was first detained outside his home is now hundreds of miles away in a Texas immigration facility, and the distance is not just geographic. The case has turned a quiet suburban school drop-off routine into a national flashpoint over how the United States treats children caught up in immigration enforcement. What began as a local shock in Columbia Heights has quickly grown into a test of policy, politics, and basic common sense.
Neighbors, school officials, and immigration advocates are now trying to piece together how a kindergartner ended up in a locked facility far from home, while federal agencies insist they are following the rules. The story of this one child, and of his family, is forcing a closer look at how Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is operating in Minnesota and what happens once families are swept into the system.
From a Minnesota driveway to a federal van
The chain of events started in a place that should have been routine, a family driveway in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. Federal officers approached a running car where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was sitting with his father on a Tuesday afternoon, turning what should have been an ordinary moment into a high-stakes encounter with immigration enforcement. According to school officials, the agents removed Liam from the vehicle in front of his home, a detail that has rattled parents who assumed their kids were safest in familiar spaces like driveways and school zones.
Educators in Columbia Heights later said the officers appeared to use the boy as leverage to reach his father, describing Liam as having been effectively used as “bait” during the operation. The district, which serves families across the Twin Cities suburbs, has been blunt that the child was not the focus of any criminal investigation, yet he was still taken into custody by federal agents. That account of federal officers seizing a 5-year-old in a residential neighborhood is backed up by school officials and has become the emotional core of the public backlash.
Who Liam is and why his case was already in the system
Liam is not some anonymous figure in a spreadsheet, he is a 5-year-old preschooler with an active immigration case that was already moving through the courts before ICE showed up at his family’s car. His full name, Liam Conejo Ramos, appears in immigration records that list his case as pending, which means he was not under a final order of deportation at the time he was taken. That status is important because it effectively shields him from immediate removal, at least on paper, and raises questions about why such aggressive enforcement tactics were used on a child whose legal process was still underway.
Family members and advocates say Liam has been living in Minnesota, attending school and receiving learning services that his educators consider essential to his development. They stress that he is a young child with specific educational needs, not a flight risk or a public safety threat. Those details, including his age, his full name, and the fact that his immigration case is listed as active and “pending,” are reflected in federal court and immigration records cited in reporting on his, which also notes that his status prevents deportation for now.
ICE sweeps in the Twin Cities and a superintendent’s warning
Liam’s detention did not happen in a vacuum, it unfolded amid a broader set of ICE operations in the Twin Cities that have left school leaders on edge. The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools has warned that immigration agents are effectively “circling our schools,” describing a pattern of enforcement activity that feels uncomfortably close to campuses and bus stops. For families who already juggle work, childcare, and language barriers, the idea that a school run or a walk home could intersect with federal raids is more than unsettling, it is a direct challenge to the notion that schools are safe havens.
Those concerns are not just rhetorical. The same superintendent has said that the ICE operations in the Twin Cities area have created a climate of fear that makes it harder for children to show up ready to learn, especially when they see classmates like Liam suddenly disappear. Educators argue that when immigration enforcement targets families near schools, it undermines trust in public institutions and can push parents to keep kids home, even if the children themselves are U.S. citizens or have legal protections. The warning that “they are circling our schools” and the description of ICE activity in the Twin Cities have become rallying points for those calling for clearer limits on where and how agents operate.
From Minnesota to South Texas: where the child is now
After the initial detention in Minnesota, Liam was not kept nearby, he was moved to a family detention center in South Texas, a transfer that has only intensified criticism of ICE’s handling of the case. Advocates say the 5-year-old is now being held in a facility designed for family immigration detention, far from his school, his routines, and the community that knows him. The long-distance move has made it harder for his relatives, lawyers, and local supporters to see him, and it has turned a local enforcement action into a cross-country custody fight.
Federal officials have defended the decision to hold the child in South Texas, arguing that the facility is equipped to handle families and that ICE is following existing protocols. At the same time, pressure has been building for his release, with critics pointing out that a preschooler with an active immigration case does not belong in a locked detention center hundreds of miles away. The growing calls for him to be freed, and the Department of Homeland Security’s defense of ICE’s actions at the South Texas facility, have turned the site into a symbol of the broader fight over family detention.
Families, protests, and a growing sense of outrage
Outside the Texas facility, families and advocates have been gathering to protest the decision to keep a 5-year-old locked up away from his parents. Demonstrators have shown up with signs, chants, and a simple message that children should not be separated from their families or held in detention centers. The protests have featured relatives of other detainees, local residents, and immigration organizers who see Liam’s case as part of a larger pattern of harsh treatment of kids in the immigration system.
One of the recurring themes at these gatherings is the demand for “Liberty for the kids,” a phrase that has been used on signs and in speeches as people call for the boy to be reunited with his family. The protests, documented in coverage of families rallying outside the facility, describe how parents and children have stood together to oppose the separation of a 5-year-old from his detained father. That scene of families protesting a child being held at a Texas facility, and the use of slogans like “Liberty for the kids,” is captured in accounts of the that have helped push the story into the national spotlight.
ICE’s public defense and the accusation of “abandonment”
As outrage has grown, ICE has not stayed silent. A top ICE official has publicly accused the boy’s father of “abandoning his child,” a charge that has stunned many observers and further inflamed the debate. According to that official, the family has a pending asylum case and no order of deportation, yet the father is being portrayed as having walked away from his son during the enforcement action. Critics argue that this framing shifts blame from the agency that physically removed the child to a parent who was himself in custody and facing the power of the federal government.
The same official has insisted that ICE personnel involved in the case are trained to work with children and that the agency is following established procedures. That defense, however, has done little to calm concerns among advocates who say the accusation of abandonment is both unfair and misleading given the family’s legal posture. The claim that the family has a pending asylum case, that there is no deportation order, and that a senior official still accused the father of abandoning his child is detailed in coverage of ICE’s, which has become a flashpoint in its own right.
Fact checks, rumors, and where he is not being held
As the story has spread, so have rumors about where exactly Liam is being held, including viral claims that he is in an ICE detention center in El Paso. Those claims have been checked against official records, including the ICE Online Detainee Locator, and found to be inaccurate. The fact check identifies both Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, and concludes that neither is currently being held at an ICE facility in El Paso, even though their case has become a national talking point.
That clarification matters because misinformation about detention locations can send families and advocates on wild goose chases, wasting time and resources that could be spent on legal support. By confirming that Liam and Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias are not in El Paso, the fact check narrows the focus back to the Texas facility where he is actually being held and to the officials responsible for his custody. The conclusion that the 5-year-old and his father are not being held at an ICE detention center in El Paso underscores how quickly confusion can spread when a case like this explodes online.
How another Minnesota toddler’s case shows a different path
Liam’s ordeal is unfolding alongside another Minnesota case that shows how differently things can go when a child is quickly returned. In that situation, a father from Ecuador and his toddler, identified in court documents as C.R.T.V., were taken into ICE custody in Minnesota and flown to Texas, much like Liam. The father and the toddler are both citizens of Ecuador, and the child has lived in Minnesota, but after legal intervention the toddler was returned to the mother the next day, avoiding a prolonged separation.
The reporting on that case, by journalist Emma Tucker, describes how the family’s lawyer characterized the experience as a “horrific ordeal” even though the separation was brief. It highlights how fast ICE can move parents and children across state lines, and how critical it is for families to have legal representation that can push back in real time. The details about the Ecuadorian father and toddler, the use of the initials C.R.T.V., and the rapid return to the mother are laid out in coverage of the, while Emma Tucker’s account of the lawyer calling it a “horrific ordeal” appears in a related report that underscores just how traumatic even a short separation can be.
Legal limbo, active cases, and what could happen next
Legally, Liam’s situation is a tangle of active cases, pending asylum claims, and agency discretion. On paper, his active immigration case means he cannot simply be put on a plane and deported tomorrow, yet that protection has not stopped ICE from detaining him far from home. Immigration lawyers point out that children in his position often end up in a kind of limbo, technically shielded from immediate removal but still living in detention or under strict supervision while their cases crawl through the system.
Data from immigration courts show that there are thousands of cases listed as “pending,” including many involving children, and that the backlog can stretch for years. In Liam’s case, advocates argue that his age, his educational needs, and his existing ties to Minnesota should weigh heavily in favor of release to family while the legal process plays out. The description of his case as active and pending, and the broader context of how many immigration cases are stuck in that status, is reflected in federal records that help explain why deportation is not the immediate next step, even as detention continues.
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