Overview:
Columbia Heights school officials say ICE enforcement actions in early January led to the detention of multiple students—including a five-year-old preschooler—traumatizing families, disrupting schools, and raising serious concerns about the treatment of children during immigration arrests.
According to Columbia Heights Public Schools, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy, Liam Ramos, on Tuesday as he returned home from school.
Ramos, who is a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody in their driveway by ICE agents, according to Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik, at a press conference on Wednesday.
Liam is one of four children in the school district who’ve been detained by ICE’s enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks, the district said.
According to Stenvik, who drove to the scene, the father’s car was still running, and the father and son were already gone. The agent took Liam out of the car and led him to his front door and had him knock on the door asking to be let in, “in order to see if anyone else was home- essentially using a five-year-old as bait”, said Stenvik in a statement.
Stenvik said there were other adults in the home who begged for Liam to stay with them to avoid detention, but they were denied. Liam’s older brother came home 20 minutes later to find that his father was gone, and two other school principals from the district also arrived to support the family.
School officials released two photos of the encounter. One showing the preschooler in a blue knit hat, outside his front door with a masked agent by his side, and another showing Liam standing by a car with a man holding on to his backpack.
“Why detain a five-year-old? You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Stenvik said.
The school district provided a statement from Liam’s teacher, who expressed horror over the boy’s detention:
“Liam is a bright young student. He is so kind and loving, and his classmates miss him. He comes into class every day and just brightens the room. All I want is for him to be back here and safe. The detention of a young child will have ripple effects, said Prokosch. “Once his classmates learn the government took him away … I’m not qualified to talk about how much damage that is going to cause. It’s not just the family, it’s the entire community and all of those kids who are now going to be facing secondary trauma.”
Liam Ramos is one of four students from the Columbia Heights school district taken by armed ICE agents without parents present.
According to the School Superintendent, on Tuesday, a 17-year-old Columbia Heights student was taken. According to the school superintendent, ICE agents carried out multiple enforcement actions involving students and their families in early January.
On January 14, agents allegedly pushed their way into an apartment and detained a 17-year-old Columbia Heights high school student and her mother.
Earlier, on January 6, a 10-year-old fourth-grade student was reportedly taken into custody by ICE while walking to her elementary school with her mother. The superintendent said the child called her father during the arrest and was told she would be taken to school; however, when the father arrived, he learned that both his daughter and wife had been detained. By the end of that school day, the mother and daughter were being held in a detention center in Texas.
Marc Prokosch, the attorney for the Ramos family, said the family had an active asylum case and shared paperwork showing the father and son had arrived in the US at a port of entry, meaning an official crossing point.
“The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out,” he said. “They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals.” He said there was no order of deportation against them and he believes the father and son have remained together in detention.
According to reporting from The Guardian, Tricia McLaughlin, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in a statement on Wednesday night that ICE was conducting a “targeted operation” to arrest Liam’s father, who she called an “illegal alien”. “ICE did NOT target a child,” she said. McLaughlin also alleged the father “fled on foot – abandoning his child”, saying, “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended [his father].
In an interview after the press conference, the superintendent said the arrests and looming presence of ICE had taken an enormous toll on students, parents, and school staff.
“Our children are traumatized. The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken,” Stenvik said. “I can speak on behalf of all school staff when I say our hearts are shattered. After our fourth student was taken yesterday, I just thought someone has to hear the story. They’re taking children.”
As school officials were preparing for the press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Stenvik reported that an ICE vehicle drove onto the property of the district’s high school and was told by administrators to leave.
“ICE agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lots and taking our kids,” Stenvik said.
