A 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were taken into custody in Minnesota by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, drawing national attention and legal scrutiny amid broader enforcement operations.
Last Tuesday marked one week since Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old Ecuadorian boy, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis as he returned home from school with his father. Images of the child, wearing his blue hat and Spiderman backpack, guarded by federal agents, quickly became a symbol of the indiscriminate nature of President Donald Trump’s offensive against migrants in the United States, and reopened the debate about the treatment of children in immigration detention centers.
While this was a central issue during Trump’s first term—especially family separation and the detention centers for minors at the border—in the first year of his second presidency, the issue of the treatment of migrant children did not feature prominently in the debate or protests against the Republican administration’s policies. Until now. Following the arrest of young Liam and his father in Minnesota, allegations about the number of children in detention and the conditions they face have become a major point of contention.
According to limited data compiled by the Deportation Data Project, ICE detained 3,800 children along with their parents between January and October 2025, including children as young as one or two years old. The same source reports that more than 2,600 of these children, like Liam Conejo, were detained inland, a significant policy shift, as previously children were typically apprehended at the border after crossing. There is no publicly available data on the number of children currently in migrant detention centers. However, more than 2,500 unaccompanied minors are reported to be under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency responsible for the care of migrant children without a locatable legal guardian.
