The Columbia Heights Public School district has said that over the last two weeks, federal agents have detained four of its students in four separate incidents. One of those detained is 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who attends a district elementary school.
“Why detain a 5-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights superintendent, told reporters Wednesday, January 22, according to MPR News.
Stenvik alleged that masked ICE agents apprehended the Minnesota boy in his driveway on Tuesday, January 20, while he was returning home from school with his father. “Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and he was refused,” Stenvik said.
Who is Liam Conejo Ramos?
Ramos is a student at Valley View Elementary. Stenvik claimed that “the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.”
Agents later took the boy and his father away in a car, and sent them to Texas, by the outlet. Stenvik said Ramos’ family has an “active asylum case” with no deportation orders. “I have viewed the legal paperwork with my own eyes,” Stenvik added.
Marc Prokosch, a lawyer representing Ramos’ family, said he is still unaware about the exact whereabouts of the child and his father. “Every step of their immigration process has been doing what they’ve been asked to do, and so this is just… cruelty,” Prokosch said, adding that Ramos’ family is currently going through an asylum application process.
“I’m exploring whether we file a habeas corpus petition to get him out, we’d have to actually file that down in Texas now,” he added.
Prokosch said that the 5-year-old’s detainment was “probably not” legal, adding that this is what is “going to make my job really difficult.” He added, “Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s moral. You know, yes, they may have the legal authority to detain a 5-year-old, but why?”
Ramos’ teacher, Ella Sullivan, said of the child, “He’s a bright young student, and he’s so kind and loving, and his classmates miss him, and all I want is for him to be safe and back here.”
