Minnesota roiled by arrests of child, church protesters

ICE agents use 5-year-old Liam Ramos as "bait" in Minneapolis — ICE agents use 5-year-old Liam Ramos as ‘bait’ in Minneapolis (Image credit: Rachel James via Reuters)

What happened

Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old child detained by ICE outside his home in a Minneapolis suburb this week, was being held along with his father in a detention center outside San Antonio, Texas, a lawyer for the family said Thursday. A viral photo of ICE apprehending the preschooler in his blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack “prompted outrage in the Twin Cities area, where many people have been angered since mid-December by the Trump administration’s surge in deportation operations,” The New York Times said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday announced the arrests of three people involved in a protest Sunday inside a St. Paul Baptist church where one of the pastors is an ICE field director. The White House posted an arrest photo of the alleged protest organizer, civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, that was digitally manipulated to make it appear she was crying.

Who said what

ICE took Liam from a running car in his driveway and told him to knock on his door, “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said. A school employee offered, and an adult inside the house “begged,” to look after him, she said, but ICE refused. “ICE did NOT target a child,” the Department of Homeland Security said on social media, alleging that the “illegal alien” father “abandoned” his son, then insisted they stay together. Witnesses disputed that account.

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The father and son have active asylum claims, so they “are not illegal aliens,” said their lawyer, Marc Prokosch. “We’re looking at our legal options to see if we can free them either through some legal mechanisms or through moral pressure.”

The three people arrested for interrupting Sunday service at Cities Church will be charged with violating the FACE Act, which prohibits using “threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates or interferes with” people in a “place of religious worship.” Levy Armstrong offered to turn herself in, but “they wanted a spectacle” and sent about 50 agents to detain her, said her husband, Marques Armstrong. A magistrate judge “enraged” Bondi by rejecting the DOJ’s “initial attempt to bring charges against journalist Don Lemon” for reporting on the protest, CNN said.

What next?

“More than 300 Minnesota bars, restaurants, museums and shops” will be closed Friday in a statewide “economic blackout” to protest the ICE incursion, The Minnesota Star Tribune said.

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.