“Why detain a 5-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights superintendent, told reporters Wednesday.

According to Stenvik, masked agents apprehended 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his driveway on Tuesday as he returned home from school with his father.

“Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and was refused,” Stenvik said.

“Instead,” she said, “the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.”

Agents later took the father and child away in a vehicle and sent them to Texas.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260122152001/https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/21/ice-detains-5year-old-minnesota-boy-lawyer-says-agents-used-him-as-bait