A five-year-old preschooler became the flashpoint in a fierce battle between federal immigration enforcers and Minnesota school officials, with each side accusing the other of endangering the child while body camera footage that could settle the dispute remains locked away.
Story Snapshot
- Columbia Heights school superintendent claims ICE detained 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his driveway on January 20, 2026, refusing to release him to family
- DHS adamantly denies targeting the child, stating the father fled on foot abandoning his son during a lawful enforcement operation
- The contradicting narratives sparked demands for body camera release while Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis ICE agents
- Four students total allegedly swept up in operations, intensifying sanctuary city tensions amid Operation Metro Surge protests
When a Father Runs and a Child Becomes Political Currency
Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias faced ICE agents in his driveway as his five-year-old son sat in the vehicle. According to federal authorities, Arias made a choice that would ignite a national firestorm: he bolted on foot, leaving young Liam behind. The Department of Homeland Security maintains agents secured the abandoned child for his safety while pursuing the father, a noncitizen from Ecuador previously released under the Biden administration. Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik tells a dramatically different story, alleging agents detained both father and son, callously refusing a family member’s plea to care for the boy.
The January 20 incident remained relatively contained until Stenvik convened an emotional press conference two days later. She detailed what she characterized as four separate student detentions, including a seventeen-year-old taken without parents present, a ten-year-old intercepted en route to school, and another seventeen-year-old detained alongside her mother. The superintendent’s passionate defense of her students, demanding ICE release body camera footage, portrayed federal agents as heartless enforcers terrorizing immigrant children. Her narrative found eager amplification among those opposed to enhanced immigration enforcement.
Federal Pushback and Political Crossfire
DHS issued an unequivocal denial that cut through the emotional rhetoric. Their statement emphasized in capital letters that ICE did not target a child and that the child was abandoned by his fleeing father. This direct contradiction exposed the chasm between local officials protecting immigrant communities and federal authorities executing what they describe as lawful, targeted operations against adult noncitizens. The agencies emphasized their standard protocol across administrations: offering parents the choice to take children during removal or designating a safe guardian, a procedure designed precisely to protect minors caught in enforcement actions.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz waded into the controversy with inflammatory language, condemning what he called masked agents snatching preschoolers. ICE responded sharply on social media, accusing Walz of spreading dangerous lies that endanger officers in the field. The agency pointedly referenced an ongoing Justice Department probe into alleged social security fraud in Minnesota state daycares under Walz’s watch, suggesting the governor had credibility problems of his own. This tit-for-tat escalation transformed a single incident into a proxy war between sanctuary-minded state leaders and a federal administration determined to enforce immigration law.
ICE live updates: School official calls on agents to release body cam from 5-year-old’s detention in emotional press conferencehttps://t.co/wo6qVdRlLc
— The Independent (@Independent) January 22, 2026
The Body Camera Evidence Nobody Can See
At the heart of this dispute sits footage that could definitively resolve who is telling the truth. Stenvik’s demand for body camera release carries emotional weight, particularly given the tender age of the child involved. Yet the footage remains unreleased, leaving the public to choose between competing narratives based largely on preexisting political loyalties. The absence of video evidence allows both sides to maintain their positions without immediate accountability, though one account must be fundamentally false. Either agents detained an innocent child against family wishes, or a father abandoned his son while evading lawful arrest.
The timing proved particularly fraught given recent history in Minneapolis. Just thirteen days before Liam’s incident, an ICE officer shot and killed thirty-seven-year-old Renee Good, escalating tensions and fueling protests against Operation Metro Surge. That operation, launched in December 2025, resulted in thousands of arrests and positioned Minneapolis as ground zero for clashing visions of immigration enforcement. The city’s mayor vowed not to be intimidated by federal actions, while protesters took to streets already primed for confrontation. Into this volatile environment dropped the story of a kindergartner caught between his father’s decision and federal authority.
High-Level Attention and Unanswered Questions
Vice President JD Vance’s scheduled January 23 visit to meet with Minneapolis ICE agents signaled the administration’s determination to stand behind its enforcement personnel. His planned public remarks following the meeting offered an opportunity to address the controversy directly, though his prior comments to PBS NewsHour suggested the administration viewed local officials’ claims with deep skepticism. The vice presidential involvement elevated what might have been a local dispute into a national test case for immigration enforcement policy under renewed federal authority.
Critical questions remain unanswered amid the political theater. Where is Liam now, and who cares for him while his father faces deportation proceedings? What happened to the other three students Stenvik described, whose cases received less attention but raise similar concerns? Why has body camera footage not surfaced if it would vindicate either side’s account? The uncertainty surrounding these basic facts allows the incident to serve as a Rorschach test, with observers seeing validation of their existing beliefs about immigration enforcement rather than grappling with uncomfortable complexities about parental choices, federal authority, and child welfare in high-stakes law enforcement situations.
Sources:
ICE live updates: Minnesota, Maine, Vance