Shock and indignation in Minnesota: the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has arrested a 5-year-old child, at a time when a new ICE operation is launched in Maine.
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The boy, Liam Ramos, was arrested Tuesday in the driveway of his house, with his father. The child was returning from kindergarten, according to a press release from the Columbia Heights school board.
The officers allegedly asked the child to knock on the door of his home in an attempt to intercept other people inside, according to school board director Zena Stenvik. “They basically used him as bait,” she denounced.
You won’t tell me that a child will be classified as a violent criminal.
Zena Stenvik, director of the Columbia Heights school board
Liam and his father are detained in San Antonio, Texas, their lawyer Marc Prokosch revealed. The child’s family arrived in the United States from Ecuador in 2024, seeking asylum, legally, according to Mme Stenvik.
ICE rejects this claim. His father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, entered illegally, according to Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. The agency also indicated on the social network X that the child would have been abandoned by his father when he was fleeing his agents.
Vice President JD Vance defended ICE agents during a press briefing Thursday.
PHOTO JIM WATSON, REUTERS
United States Vice President JD Vance speaking to the press on Thursday
“What were they supposed to do?” Letting a 5 year old child freeze to death? Don’t they have the right to arrest a foreigner in the United States? », he questioned
Liam is the fourth juvenile attending a Columbia Heights school board facility to be arrested in recent weeks. Two 17-year-old teenagers and a 10-year-old child suffered the same fate.
ICE agents have been lurking near the city’s schools for two weeks, according to Zena Stenvik, creating a “traumatic” atmosphere. School attendance has declined in the meantime, she observes.
“Cascade effect”
Spectacular arrests have been increasing for several weeks in the United States and the trend is expected to continue, according to the president of the Observatory on the United States at UQAM, Charles-Philippe David.
“There is political and bureaucratic pressure on ICE bosses. We ask them to make as many arrests as possible to reach incredible targets,” he notes.
He notes a “cascade effect” that pushes ICE to hire ever more agents and, at the same time, to botch their training.
We’re throwing these people into deployments. This gives, in my humble opinion, a drift that is unacceptable, intolerable, illegitimate and ineffective.
Charles-Philippe David, president of the Observatory on the United States of UQAM
Minnesota is at the heart of U.S. immigration enforcement operations. About 3,000 arrests have been made there in the past six weeks, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection official Greg Bovino.
Authorized to enter homes
ICE agents would also have received authorization to enter their target’s homes without a judicial warrant. At least that’s what an internal memo from the organization, obtained by the Associated Press, indicates. This is a complete shift, since ICE was previously required to respect constitutional limits on searches.
Officers are therefore authorized to use force to enter a residence based on a simple administrative warrant to arrest a person subject to a final expulsion order.
For years, lawyers representing immigrants and legal aid groups have urged people not to open their doors to immigration officials unless they present them with a warrant signed by a judge.
PHOTO LEAH MILLIS, REUTERS ARCHIVES
An ICE agent leaves a residence after an intervention, January 18
According to the whistleblower contacted by the Associated Press, the memo was not widely distributed within ICE. However, it would be used in the training of new agents.
Operation “Catch of the Day”
Donald Trump’s deportation campaign now moves to Maine, where on Wednesday Operation Catch of the Day officially launched. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the deployment has already enabled “the arrest of several individuals convicted of assault, false imprisonment and endangering the well-being of a child”.
The mayors of the cities of Portland and Lewiston have already warned residents of the arrival of ICE agents. Both municipalities are home to many African asylum seekers, including Somalis.
“These masked men, who disregard the rule of law, are causing long-term damage to our state and our country,” said Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline.
The vast majority of ICE operations take place in Democratic states, such as Maine, recalls Charles-Philippe David. Electoral motivations may be hidden behind the decision to send agents there, he believes.
“Republican Senator Susan Collins is not garnering fantastic political support,” he recalls. “Donald Trump perhaps sees this as fertile ground where he could create conditions of fear that will be favorable to him. »
Mr. David, however, doubts that “fear and violence” are tools allowing Republicans to record electoral gains.
