ICE detains four Minnesota students, including five-year-old boy, school district says

A five year-old-boy is among four students detained in one Minnesota school district by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, officials say.

Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were taken into custody by ICE agents in their driveway, just after the young child returned home from preschool that day, it is claimed.

The officers told the boy to knock on the door to his home to see if other people were inside, "essentially using a five-year-old as bait", said Zena Stenvik, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, north of Minneapolis.

"Why detain a five-year-old?" she asked.

"You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal."

The father told the boy's mother, who was inside the home and has not been named, not to open the door, Ms Stenvik told reporters.

Liam and his father have since been flown more than 1,000 miles from their home in Minneapolis to a facility in Texas.

The three other recently detained students were a 10-year-old girl and two 17-year-olds. The girl and one of the older students had been on their way to school at the time, officials said.

Mary Granlund, chair of the Columbia Heights Public Schools, told reporters: "We've had four children taken from my school district. That's far too many. That's far too many, right? I really just want children to be reading and writing and learning science and all of those subject areas."

The White House has struck a different tone over Liam's case.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that "ICE did NOT target a child".

She insisted the force had come to arrest Conejo Arias, an Ecuadorian national, before he fled on foot "abandoning his child".

"For the child's safety," Ms McLaughlin said, "one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias".

She added that parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or have them placed with a person of their choosing.

Ms Stenvik said the family has an active asylum case and has not been ordered to leave the country.

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Since Donald Trump ramped up the presence of ICE officers in Minneapolis, two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old have also been taken.

Ms Stenvik said a 17-year-old student was removed from a car on Tuesday and "taken by armed, masked agents alone". An official said no parents were present.

Two weeks ago, a 10-year-old student was "taken by ICE agents" while she was on her way to school with her mother, Ms Stenvik said.

She called her father during the arrest to let him know what was happening, and by the end of the school day, both the student and her mother were in a detention centre in Texas, where they remain, Ms Stenvik added.

And last week, agents "pushed their way into an apartment" and detained a 17-year-old student and her mother, Ms Stenvik said.

She said attendances in schools had plummeted in recent weeks - with some classes down by two thirds.

It also comes just weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good.

(c) Sky News 2026: ICE detains four Minnesota students, including five-year-old boy, school district says