{"id":197786,"date":"2026-01-23T00:30:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ice-detains-4-minnesota-students-including-5-year-old-school-district-says-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T00:30:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:30:49","slug":"ice-detains-4-minnesota-students-including-5-year-old-school-district-says-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ice-detains-4-minnesota-students-including-5-year-old-school-district-says-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE detains 4 Minnesota students, including 5-year-old, school district says – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
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A public school district north of Minneapolis said ICE agents detained four of its students in recent weeks, including a 5-year-old.
Zena Stenvik, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, said in a Wednesday news conference that four of the district’s students had been “taken” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in <\/strong>recent weeks. Two of the students were on their way to school, she said.
On Tuesday afternoon, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were taken into custody by ICE agents in their driveway, just after the child returned home from preschool that day, Stenvik said. She added that another adult who lived in the home and was present at the time of the incident “begged” the agents to let him take care of the kid, but the agents refused.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that \u201cICE did NOT target a child.\u201d
McLaughlin said that ICE agents were targeting the boy\u2019s father, and that during the arrest, Conejo Arias \u201cfled on foot \u2014 abandoning his child. For the child\u2019s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child\u201d while agents apprehended the father.
\u201cParents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates,\u201d McLaughlin said in a statement. \u201cThis is consistent with past administration\u2019s immigration enforcement.\u201d
Taking questions from reporters in Minneapolis on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance spoke about ICE\u2019s detention of a 5-year-old boy in the city earlier this week.
\u201cI see the story, and I\u2019m a father of a 5-year-old, actually, 5-year-old little boy. And I think to myself, \u2018Oh, my God, this is terrible. How did we arrest a 5-year-old?\u2019\u201d Vance said.
“Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?\u201d he said.
Marc Prokosch, an immigration attorney representing the family, said he believed both father and son are being held in Texas currently.
“I\u2019m exploring whether we file a habeas corpus petition to get him out,” he said at Wednesday’s news conference. “We\u2019d have to actually file that down in Texas now and then, also continuing to look through the family\u2019s overall immigration case, because obviously, Liam doesn\u2019t have his own individual case. It\u2019s the family as a whole.”
NBC News reached out to Prokosch for further comment but he did not immediately respond.
Stenvik noted that the family involved “is following U.S. legal parameters and has an active asylum case with no order of deportation.”
“Why detain a 5-year-old?” Stenvik asked Wednesday. “You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
The Columbia Heights Public Schools released a statement saying that 20 minutes after the boy and his father were taken, “the middle school brother came home to a missing dad, a missing little brother, and a terrified mother.”
Conejo Ramos’ teacher Ella Sullivan said that his removal has been a shock.
“He comes into class every day, and he just brightens the room,” she said. “His friends haven\u2019t asked about him yet, but I know that they\u2019ll catch on, and it\u2019s just a very unfortunate situation. It should not be happening.”
Additionally, on Tuesday, Stenvik said a 17-year-old student was removed from their car and “taken by armed, masked agents alone.” Stenvik said no parents were present.
Two weeks ago, a 10-year-old student was “taken by ICE agents” while she was on her way to school with her mom, Stenvik said. She called her dad during the arrest to let him know what was happening, and by the end of the school day, both the student and her mother were in a detention center in Texas, where they remain, the superintendent added.
And last week, agents “pushed their way into an apartment” and detained a 17-year-old student and her mother, Stenvik said.
NBC News has asked DHS for comment on the additional three students Stenvik said were detained by ICE but did not receive a reply.
Also on Tuesday, Stenvik said an ICE vehicle drove onto school property and approached the high school loading dock. She added that school administration told those in the vehicle to leave.
“ICE agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lots and taking our children,” Stenvik said. “The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken, and our hearts are shattered.”
Stenvik said attendance has been down at the district’s schools, and that recently she made the call to keep recess indoors because ICE agents were patrolling near one of the schools’ playgrounds.
“Our children should not be afraid to come to school or to wait at a bus stop,” she said.
McLaughlin previously told NBC News that \u201cICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children. Criminals are no longer able to hide in America\u2019s schools to avoid arrest.”
Rebecca Cohen is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
Caroline Radnofsky is a supervising reporter for\u00a0NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team based in London.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA public school district north of Minneapolis said ICE agents detained four of its students in recent weeks, including a 5-year-old.Zena Stenvik, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, said in a Wednesday news conference that four of the district’s students had been “taken” by Immigration and Customs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-197786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}