(COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, MINNESOTA) — Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said ICE agents detained 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, in the family’s driveway on January 20, 2026, after the child returned home from preschool.
The Department of Homeland Security disputed that account and said ICE did not target a child during the operation.
Stenvik told a Wednesday news conference that agents took both the father and son into custody in or near the driveway as the family arrived home, an encounter that drew immediate attention in Columbia Heights and prompted competing accounts from the school district and federal officials.
Early reports that other Columbia Heights students were detained during the same operation widened concern beyond the single incident involving Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, as the district described multiple cases involving minors.
Stenvik said ICE agents took Conejo Arias into custody along with the 5-year-old and that another adult in the home pleaded to take the child. She said the other adult “begged” agents to let him care for the child, but agents refused.
According to Stenvik, the child later entered the detention system and was sent to a detention center in Texas, though the district did not confirm a facility name or address in the account provided.
DHS, in a statement disputing the school district’s characterization, used emphatic language to describe what happened as agents tried to arrest the father. “ICE did NOT target a child. The child was ABANDONED,” the department said.
“ICE did NOT target a child. The child was ABANDONED.”
DHS said ICE conducted a targeted operation on January 20 to arrest Conejo Arias, describing him as “an illegal alien from Ecuador who was RELEASED into the U.S. by the Biden administration.”
In the department’s account, agents approached the driver and Conejo Arias “fled on foot—abandoning his child.” DHS said agents stayed with the child as other officers pursued the father.
“For the child’s safety, ICE officers remained with the boy while other agents apprehended his father,” DHS officials said.
“For the child’s safety, ICE officers remained with the boy while other agents apprehended his father.”
Federal officials also described what they said was standard practice when children are present during an arrest and a parent is removed. DHS said “parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates,” calling that approach “consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement.”
The conflicting narratives set up a sharp dispute over whether the encounter in Columbia Heights amounted to a child being detained during an immigration sweep, or a child being temporarily left with agents during the father’s arrest attempt.
Stenvik’s account centered on what she said happened in the driveway and what she said followed, including the refusal to release the child to another adult in the home at that moment and the district’s report that the child later ended up in Texas.
DHS focused on the operation’s stated target and framed the child’s circumstances as the result of the father’s actions when agents tried to arrest him, including the claim that Conejo Arias fled and left the child behind.
The disagreement quickly became political in Minnesota, with Governor Tim Walz criticizing the account presented by the school district and describing what he said the reports showed about enforcement practices.
“Masked agents snatching preschoolers off the street and sending them to Texas detention centers serves none of those purposes.”
ICE replied on social media with a direct rebuttal and an accusation that the governor’s comments endangered officers.
“This is a lie, but that’s all he seems to know how to do at this point. Lies like these, from elected officials such as yourself, put our officers at greater risk of attack,” ICE wrote.
“This is a lie, but that’s all he seems to know how to do at this point. Lies like these, from elected officials such as yourself, put our officers at greater risk of attack.”
ICE also questioned whether Walz “acquired his reading comprehension skills at the Quality Learning Center,” a line that referenced alleged social security fraud by daycares in the state.
That exchange broadened the dispute beyond the specifics of the Jan. 20 encounter involving Liam Conejo Ramos and Conejo Arias and into a wider argument about credibility, public trust, and how immigration enforcement actions intersect with schools and young children.
Stenvik also reported three other student detentions during the same operation in the Columbia Heights district, describing incidents involving minors at different ages and in different circumstances.
One case involved a 17-year-old whom Stenvik described as being “taken by armed, masked agents” when no parent was present.
Stenvik said another case involved a 10-year-old taken on her way to school.
A third report involved another 17-year-old detained with her mother in an incident the superintendent described as one in which agents “pushed their way into an apartment.”
The superintendent’s description of those additional incidents added urgency to the district’s concerns, as school officials pointed to multiple reports involving students and raised alarms about how such encounters can unfold around homes and school routines.
DHS’s statement, meanwhile, emphasized what it called a targeted operation aimed at Conejo Arias and outlined the agency’s view of how officers proceed when children are present, including the department’s description of a process in which a parent can choose removal with a child or designate a safe person to take custody.
The school district’s account and the DHS account aligned on the central fact that the Jan. 20 operation focused on Conejo Arias, but they diverged sharply over how the 5-year-old was treated during the encounter and what happened afterward.
Stenvik presented the incident as a detention of both father and son as they arrived home from preschool and said the child entered the detention system and went to Texas, after another adult in the home asked to care for him and agents refused.
DHS rejected the notion that ICE targeted the child and instead described a sequence in which the father fled and agents stayed with the child for safety while others apprehended the father.
Walz’s comments and ICE’s response intensified attention on the district’s allegations that masked agents detained students, including a preschooler, and linked those allegations to broader questions about what enforcement looks like in neighborhoods and around families.
ICE’s social media message disputed the governor’s framing and accused him of spreading falsehoods that could increase risks to officers, while also invoking the Quality Learning Center reference tied to alleged daycare fraud.
The school district’s account, centered on what Stenvik said she understood from the incident and subsequent events, put the focus on the child’s welfare and on whether agents permitted a caregiver in the home to take responsibility for a 5-year-old at the time of the arrest encounter.
The additional student cases described by Stenvik underscored the extent to which the dispute was no longer confined to a single driveway encounter, but had become a broader test of how families and school officials interpret and respond to enforcement actions that touch students.
For Columbia Heights, the reported detentions of a 17-year-old without a parent present, a 10-year-old while traveling to school, and another 17-year-old with her mother created a cluster of allegations that the district described as part of the same operation.
DHS’s statement did not address each of those additional incidents in the information provided, focusing instead on the Conejo Arias operation and the department’s version of what happened as agents tried to arrest him.
The dispute left two sharply different portrayals at the center of public discussion: a school district superintendent saying a child and father were detained in a driveway after preschool and that the child later went into detention in Texas, and DHS saying ICE did not target a child and that the child was abandoned when the father fled.
As the back-and-forth continued, the names at the center of the Columbia Heights case — Liam Conejo Ramos and Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias — became part of a wider argument over enforcement, transparency, and the safety of children when immigration arrests occur near homes and on school days.
ICE Detains Liam Conejo Ramos in Columbia Heights and Sends Him to Texas
Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik reported that ICE agents detained a five-year-old student and his father on January 20, 2026. While the district alleges the child was sent to a Texas detention center despite family offers of care, DHS maintains the child was abandoned when the father fled. The incident has sparked a heated debate involving Governor Tim Walz and federal authorities over immigration enforcement transparency.
