Two more boys from the school of five-year-old detainee Liam Conejo Ramos were taken into ICE custody by their principal after agents detained their mother at an immigration appointment.
A photograph of Liam, standing scared in the snow, wearing a hat with bunny ears, while being detained by federal immigration agents, has come to represent some of the most heartless aspects of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive.
The latest seizure unfolded on Thursday when the mother, who is seeking asylum, was picked up during a check-in at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, according to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR).
With no relatives in Minnesota to look after them, the woman phoned Valley View Elementary principal Jason Kuhlman and asked him to bring her sons—both elementary-age, between 7 and 9—to be with her in custody, the Star Tribune reported.
He and a school nurse who collected the boys from class in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, explained what had happened to their mom, and drove them to Whipple.
The older child, a fifth-grader, stayed quiet as Kuhlman described the detention, then broke down as they approached the federal complex and clung to the nurse’s hand, according to the outlets.
Inside the Whipple building, Kuhlman and Columbia Academy principal Leslee Sherk said they saw other children waiting around a television playing cartoons, with a box of books on the floor—a makeshift holding room for families in limbo. Describing the scene, Sherk told the Star Tribune, “It just didn’t sit right with me.”
The principal arrived carrying the mother’s immigration documents and told officials that she and her boys had proof of lawful presence and, they said, a judge’s order barring their deportation. According to Kuhlman, staff told them to wait while a supervisor reviewed the situation, but no decision came before the educators had to leave, MPR reported.
What happens next to the family is unclear. Kuhlman said they fear the boys and their mom could be moved within hours to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas—the same ICE facility where Liam, 5, is already being held, along with at least one fourth-grader from a neighboring school.
That Dilley complex was reopened under a renewed ICE contract to detain migrant families through at least 2030, despite years of complaints over medical care and conditions.
On Thursday, lawmakers and advocates described Liam as feverish, vomiting, and barely responsive inside the facility. Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett said the boy was “so lethargic” during a 30-minute visit. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied that the child was ill, putting forward a government official who it said had given him a check-up.
Kuhlman, who has worked in Columbia Heights Public Schools since 2019, said the campus is being hollowed out by immigration raids. He told the Star Tribune that ICE has detained mothers and fathers from 25 families at Valley View this month alone, including Liam and his father, who were grabbed outside their apartment on Jan. 20.
Columbia Academy principal Sherk said at least 14 families at her middle school have been hit by enforcement actions, with Monday mornings now bringing a routine of voicemails about parents taken by ICE. Minnesota Public Radio reported that at least six children from the Columbia Heights district are now in ICE custody.
Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, asylum seekers from Ecuador, were swiftly flown more than 1,200 miles to Dilley after agents detained them outside their home in Columbia Heights. A federal judge in Texas, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, has temporarily blocked their deportation and any transfer out of his court’s jurisdiction while litigation continues, though he left the pair in ICE custody at the facility.
School officials have accused ICE of using Liam as “bait” during the original arrest by walking the five-year-old to his front door. DHS denies that and claims his father abandoned him while trying to flee.
Educators say they are being forced into the middle of those battles—now literally delivering children into detention. “We shouldn’t have to be bringing students to a detention center because their mom was doing everything right and was detained,” Kuhlman told the Star Tribune.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
