Columbia Heights 5‑year‑old, father detained by ICE despite pending asylum claim

Columbia Heights school leaders and the attorney for 5‑year‑old Liam Ramos say the kindergartner and his father — Ecuadorian asylum seekers who entered via the CBP One app, presented themselves at the border and have been attending hearings — were taken by ICE from their driveway on Tuesday and are now held together at a family immigration facility in San Antonio. Attorney Marc Prokosch insists they "did everything right" and that immigration violations in this case are civil, not criminal, making the incarceration of a child indefensible, especially when the family is following the process and is neither a safety risk nor a flight risk. Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik says four district students have been detained by ICE in recent weeks and detailed how agents used Liam to get his middle‑school brother to open the door, calling it using a 5‑year‑old "as bait." Vice President JD Vance publicly claimed the boy was not arrested and that the father is an "illegal alien" who ran, arguing parents can’t be immune from arrest because they have children, but Prokosch flatly rejects that description and says Vance is wrong on the law and the facts. The case has become a high‑visibility example in the Twin Cities of how the federal surge is sweeping up families with pending legal cases, intensifying fear in schools and immigrant neighborhoods already rattled by recent ICE shootings and raids.