Outrage grew on Friday over the detention of a five-year-old boy in a massive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, as US Vice President JD Vance defended the roundups by federal agents, prompting calls for a general strike.
The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Ramos was a pre-school student, said the child and his Ecuadoran father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who were asylum seekers were taken from their driveway as they arrived home.
Ramos was then used as “bait” by immigration officers to knock on the door of his home to draw out those inside, Zena Stenvik added.
Thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been deployed to the Democratic-led city, as US President Donald Trump presses his campaign to deport illegal immigrants across the country.
Vance confirmed on Thursday that the five-year-old boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, was among those detained, but argued that agents were protecting him after his father “ran” from an immigration sweep.
“What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?” he said.
The UN rights chief Volker Turk called on US authorities to end the “dehumanising portrayal and harmful treatment of migrants and refugees”.
Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro, whose constituency includes a San Antonio ICE detention centre to which it was thought Ramos was taken, rejected Vance’s explanation for Ramos’ arrest, branding authorities “sick liars.”
“My staff and I have been trying to figure out his whereabouts, make sure he’s safe, and also to demand his release by ICE,” he wrote on X.
Ramos’ teacher, whose name was given as Ella, called him “a bright young student”.
“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,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.
Calls for a day of action against ICE and a general strike have been gaining traction on social media, with a demonstration expected in downtown Minneapolis on Friday.
‘Children as pawns’
Former US vice president Kamala Harris said she was “outraged” by Ramos’s detention and called him “just a baby”, while former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton accused law enforcement of “using children as pawns”.
Images have emerged online showing Ramos being escorted by a man wearing black clothes and a black face covering.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the federal government was treating children “like criminals”.
The Homeland Security Department rejected claims ICE agents targeted Ramos, saying he was “abandoned” by his father during his arrest.
“For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended (his father) Conejo Arias,” it posted on X.
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”
‘Taking a toll’
Ramos is one of at least four children detained in the same Minneapolis school district this month, local administrators said.
The children’s detention came as the US attorney general announced the arrests of three activists accused of disrupting a church service with a protest accusing a pastor of working for ICE.
Videos of that protest showed dozens of demonstrators chanting “ICE out!” in the church.
Minneapolis has been rocked by increasingly tense protests since federal agents shot and killed US citizen Renee Good on January 7.
The officer who fired the shots that killed Good, Jonathan Ross, has neither been suspended nor charged.
Marc Prokosch, the lawyer for Ramos and his father, said they followed the law in applying for asylum in Minneapolis, which is a sanctuary city where police do not cooperate with federal immigration.
Children have long been caught up in federal immigration enforcement, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Vance claimed such local efforts were hindering ICE efforts.
“The lack of cooperation between state and local officials makes it harder for us to do our job and turns up the temperature,” Vance said.
Minnesota has sought a temporary restraining order for the ICE operation in the state, which, if granted by a federal judge, would pause the sweeps. There will be a hearing on the application on Monday.
