Horror as ICE uses 5-year-old as 'bait' for family: 'What has become of our country?'

Federal agents have detained four Minnesota students — including a 5-year-old boy they used as "bait" for family members – as part of the Trump administration's nationwide immigration crackdown, according to school officials.

Officials with the Columbia Heights Public School district told Minnesota Public Radio that masked agents apprehended 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his family's driveway Tuesday as he returned home from school with his father. Both of them were later taken away in a vehicle and sent to a facility in Texas.

“Why detain a 5-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” said Superintendent Zena Stenvik.

“Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and was refused,” Stenvik added. “Instead, the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.”

Stenvik told reporters the family has an “active asylum case” with no deportation orders.

“I have viewed the legal paperwork with my own eyes,” Stenvik said.

Immigration attorney Marc Prokosch, who is representing the family, said he still does not know exactly where Liam or his father were taken but he believes they are likely in a family holding cell in Texas.

“Every step of their immigration process has been doing what they’ve been asked to do, and so this is just … cruelty,” Prokosch said. “I’m exploring whether we file a habeas corpus petition to get him out, we’d have to actually file that down in Texas now."

Prokosch confirmed the family is currently going through an asylum application process, but he said the boy's detainment was "probably not" illegal.

"That’s what’s going to make my job really difficult," he said. "Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s moral. You know, yes, they may have the legal authority to detain a 5-year-old, but why?”

Three other students, including a 10-year-old apprehended with her mother on the way to her fourth-grade class, have been detained in recent weeks, school officials said, and nearly a third of the district's students have stayed home in recent weeks out of fear.

“This surge has changed nearly everything about our daily lives,” Stenvik said. “Students are watching abductions on their way to school, on their way home and through their windows. Imagine the trauma of a child being picked up by masked and armed agents, seeing their parents in handcuffs and being used to attempt to lure their mother out of the house and into danger. What has become of our country?”