Liam Ramos is five. In photographs of his arrest on Tuesday, released by the school district where he is enrolled as a preschooler, he is wearing a large blue hat with a bunny face and ears. According to the superintendent, Liam had just arrived home from school with his father when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apprehended the two and arrested them. Allegedly, one of Liam’s relatives, who was outside at the time, begged for the little boy to be allowed to stay there in their care; instead, both father and son were captured by the federal agents and quickly transported to a detention camp in Dilley, Texas. Liam’s father has no apparent criminal record; he has a pending asylum case. Does it need to be said that the child does not have a criminal record, either? In one picture, a white man’s hand clutches, claw-like, on to the back of Liam’s Spider-Man backpack. In another, a masked man stands behind Liam, stooping slightly to reach the small child, as the boy stands at the front door of his home. According to school officials, the agent instructed Liam to knock on the door and ask to be let into the house “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”.
Liam is the fourth child from his Minneapolis-area school district to be seized by ICE agents since the surge of federal immigration forces in the city. According to school officials, two 17-year olds were also taken – one snatched alone from their car, another captured at home with her mother. Another child, a 10-year-old girl in the fourth grade, was allegedly also taken by the federal forces – while on her way to school with her mother.
