Detention of Liam Conejo Ramos

On January 20, 2026, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy, on his walk home from school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, amid the Operation Metro Surge deployment to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. The child and his father Adrian Conejo Arias each had an active claim for asylum in the United States. ICE claims the father fled and left the child in the car. The family alleges that the father didn't resist, or flee. According to witness statements and the family's attorney, there were multiple adults available to take custody of Liam, but ICE arrested him anyway. ICE's statement was that Liam wasn’t targeted and that an officer stayed with the child while other officers apprehended his father. Officers attempted to get his mother, who was inside the house, to take custody of the boy, indicating she would not be detained for taking custody but she believed the child was being used to lure her out.

According to Spain's El País newspaper, "Images of [Conejo Ramos], wearing his blue hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack, guarded by federal agents, instantly became a symbol of the indiscriminate nature of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the United States".

The case has become a cause célèbre, with numerous people expressing outrage on a child being detained by ICE.