The chair of the board of a Minnesota school where a five-year-old boy was arrested by ICE has described the chaotic scene that led to his apprehension, contradicting claims by Trump officials that the young boy was taken to stop him from being left alone in the cold.
“I was on my way to get my own children from school, and I heard the commotion and saw all the people,” Mary Granlund, of Columbia Heights Public Schools, told reporters Thursday, after the detention of the youngster, named as Liam Ramos.
“As I got out of my car and came around the corner, I heard, ‘What are you doing? Don't take the child… There are people here that can take him. There was another adult who lived in the home that was there saying, ‘I will take the child.’”
Granlund added that when onlookers recognized her, they told agents that the boy could have been given to the care of school authorities. “There was ample opportunity to be able to safely hand that child off to adults,” she said.
She added that ICE agents had been attempting to use the child as “bait” to lure his mother out of the house.
Her remarks come in stark contrast to the account given by Trump officials, including vice president JD Vance, who claimed that the boy was taken by law enforcement to ensure he did not “freeze to death.”
Speaking Thursday in Minnesota, Vance said that Ramos himself had not been arrested, and that his apprehension had been part of an operation to arrest his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who he described as an “illegal alien.”
“So the story is that ICE detained a five-year-old? Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” he said.
Granlund said the community’s “sense of safety” has been “shaken,” amid reports that at least four students from Columbia Heights, including Ramos, have been taken by ICE agents in recent weeks.
“The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken, and our hearts are shattered. Honestly, at the end of the day, children should be in school with their classmates, and we want to focus on the purpose of educating our children,” Granlund told reporters.
She later added: “We are seeking a peaceful resolution, and we need your help, because at the end of the day, we have whistles and they have guns.”
“The onslaught of ice activity in our community is inducing trauma and is taking a toll on our children, taking a toll on our families, our staff, our community members. This surge has changed nearly everything about our daily lives.”
“The young boy, Liam and his father… have the documentation. I saw it with my own eyes when I visited the home.”
School officials say that the child and his father have since been taken to a detention facility in San Antonio, Texas, over 1,200 miles away.
The family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, said they are not U.S. citizens but “have been following the legal process perfectly, from presenting themselves at the border to applying for asylum and waiting for the process to go through.”
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