ICE agents have detained at least four children within the same Minneapolis school district over the past two weeks. Among those detained is a 5-year-old boy, school officials said on Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security said the boy’s father is an “illegal alien” and has denied that ICE is targeting children, while the family’s attorney said the father came into the country legally.

ICE detained a 5-year-old boy and his father

Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy, and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were detained in their driveway on Tuesday afternoon as they were coming back from the child’s preschool, according to a statement released by Columbia Heights Public Schools and as reported by The Washington Post.

DHS officials claimed the father tried to flee on foot when ICE officers approached him. They also said an officer stayed with the child while others arrested Conejo Arias. ICE officers then asked the boy to knock on the door in order to see if anyone else was home. In doing so, Superintendent Zena Stenvik said the agents used the “five-year-old as bait.”

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Another adult living at the home was outside at the time and “begged the agents” to leave the 5-year-old with them. Yet, ICE officers reportedly refused.

DHS added that ICE’s policy is to ask parents if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place them with a safe person designated by a parent.

“ICE did NOT target a child,” DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, according to The Guardian.

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Why was the father and his 5-year-old son detained by ICE?

McLaughlin said that ICE was conducting a “targeted operation” to arrest the boy’s father. She referred to him as an “illegal alien”. The family’s attorney Marc Prokosch denied the claims, said they had had an active asylum case and specified that they had legally entered the United States.

“The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out,” he said, per The Guardian. “They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals.”

Prokosch added that there was no order of deportation against the father. He believes both father and son are detained together in San Antonio.

The Trump administration had been justifying the arrest and detention of immigrants by claiming they committed crimes. Stenvik questioned why ICE detained the boy in those regards.

“Why detain a 5-year-old?” she said at a news conference, according to The Washington Post. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”

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ICE has detained three other children over the past two weeks

Another case includes a 17-year-old high school student, who was removed from their car as they were driving to school on Tuesday.

“No parents were present” as masked agents believed to be ICE officers took them away, the school district said, per The Washington Post.

On Jan. 14, ICE agents also detained a 17-year-old high school girl and her mother as they “pushed their way into an apartment,” Stenvik said. A week prior, a 10-year-old was taken away by ICE with her mother while on their way to elementary school.

Stenvik said that an ICE vehicle drove onto the property of the district’s high school and that officers told administrators to leave as they were preparing for the Wednesday press conference.

“ICE agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lots and taking our kids,” Stenvik said, The Guardian reported.

“Our children are traumatized. The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken,” she added. “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.”

Liam Ramos

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