Former US Vice President Kamala Harris slammed the Donald Trump-led administration’s crackdown on immigrants after ICE agents detained a five-year-old boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, after he had returned home from preschool.
The detention of a five-year-old boy in the US’s Minnesota has triggered a massive outcry, with former Vice President Kamala Harris joining the criticism. Liam Conejo Ramos, an Ecuadorean, who along with his parents are awaiting asylum in the US, was detained and sent to an immigration lock-up in Texas on Tuesday. Visuals on social media showed the boy visibly scared as masked and armed ICE agents grabbed him and put him inside an SUV before speeding away.
Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, fumed at the actions of the ICE agents, saying Liam was only a baby. “Liam Ramos is just a baby. He should be at home with his family, not used as bait by ICE and held in a Texas detention center. I am outraged, and you should be too,” she tweeted.
Liam was detained soon after he and his father returned home from his preschool. Witnesses, including Mary Granlund, the chair of the Columbia Heights school board, told news agency Reuters that the immigration agents attempted to use the child as bait to lure his mother out of their home. However, Liam’s father had told his wife to remain inside the house, potentially to avoid detention herself. Granlund also claimed that school officials, an adult from the Ramos family home and all of their neighbours offered to take the child, only to be denied by the ICE officials.
The US Homeland, however, denied targeting Liam, and instead alleged that Liam’s father fled on foot, “abandoning the child” while being arrested by ICE agents. “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, adding that parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or have them placed with a person of their choosing.
Vice President JD Vance also said that Liam’s father ran and abandoned his son. “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,” he told a press conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he attended to show support for the ICE.
*India today*
