PoliticsUpdated - 22 January 2026 03:43 am IST

What Happened in the Minnesota ICE Detention of a Five-Year-Old Boy?

By /u/speedythefirst
A little boy standing behind bars in a jail cell

Quick Summary

In a quiet Minneapolis suburb, a five-year-old preschooler named Liam Ramos and his father were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in their driveway as they returned home from school on a Tuesday. The event shocked the community, with school superintendent Zena Stenvik arriving at the scene to find the family's car still running but them gone. Stenvik condemned the agents' tactics, stating they used the child as "bait" by having him knock on his own front door to see if anyone else was inside. An adult relative's offer to take custody of Liam was reportedly refused, and his older brother later returned from middle school to an empty house. According to the family's lawyer, Marc Prokosch, they were not criminals and had no deportation order, but rather an active asylum case after presenting themselves at an official port of entry.

"So, a five-year-old was held by ICE in Minnesota—what's the story there?"In a really quiet part of Minneapolis, a five-year-old preschooler named Liam Ramos was actually taken in by U.The "S" in a...

"So, a five-year-old was held by ICE in Minnesota—what's the story there?"In a really quiet part of Minneapolis, a five-year-old preschooler named Liam Ramos was actually taken in by U.The "S" in a sentence can mean a few things.

Sometimes it's talking about a person's name that starts with S, like Sarah or Steve.

A protestor holds a "melt ice" sign.
Chad Stembridge

Other times, it's short for "is" or "has" when attached to a word, as in "she's" or "it's." This makes sentences flow a bit more smoothly.

We see "S" at the end of many words too, showing there's more than one of something, like "cats" or "books." It's also at the end of some verbs when we're talking about one person doing something, for example, "he runs" or "she writes." It's a pretty busy letter, really, and plays some practical roles in how we speak and write.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are on the scene.When that thing went down on Tuesday in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, it really rocked the whole community.

Everyone's just trying to figure out what happened.School officials are saying that Liam and his dad were stopped right in their driveway when they got home from school.When the school district's superintendent, Zena Stenvik, got wind of the detention, she hurried right over to the family's house.She got there and what she saw was pretty shocking: the dad's car was still humming along, but he and his little boy were nowhere to be found.Stenvik said an agent pulled Liam from the car and had him knock on his own front door.

The idea was to see if anyone else was inside, a move she called "using a five-year-old as bait."This text isn't long enough for me to rewrite.

Could you please provide a more complete passage?

It's hard to make something sound human when there's so little to work with!Someone there, an adult relative, apparently begged the agents to let them look after Liam themselves instead of sending him to a detention center, but the agents said no.Twenty minutes later, Liam's older brother, who was in middle school, got home.

The house was empty.

His dad and little brother were gone.So, what's the family's legal situation, and how did officials react?Marc Prokosch, the family's lawyer, says they followed every rule in the book.He said they had an active asylum case and showed some papers that supported their claim that they had already gotten to the U."Hey, Sarah, how about we chat later?"at an official port of entry.They came here without the right papers, that's all."They are not criminals," Prokosch said, and there wasn't even an order to deport them.

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