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Thousands of people took to the cold, icy streets of Minneapolis on Friday to protest the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Democratic-led city, as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown continues.
Restaurants, tourist attractions and other businesses have closed across Minnesota over the past few weeks as part of a concerted effort to counter weeks of federal immigration measures in the state. According to organizers, about 700 businesses have closed down in solidarity with the movement.
Meanwhile, 100 clergy were arrested in another protest outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport over the use of deportation facilities.
The protests came days after images were released showing a clearly frightened preschooler, Liam Conejo Ramos, being held by immigration officials as they tried to arrest the boy’s father. The images reignited public anger over a federal crackdown in which officials shot and killed an American citizen on January 7th.
The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where the boy was a preschooler, said the boy and his Ecuadorian father, Adrian Conejo Arias, both asylum seekers, were taken from their driveway as they were returning home Tuesday.
Superintendent Zena Stenvik added that the child was then used by officers as a “decoy” to draw out those inside the home.
One demonstrator, speaking on condition of anonymity, told a news agency that they were marching because “if you don’t fight, you can’t win. If you don’t fight, fascism will win.”
He held up a sign that read, “Five years old, dude,” in honor of Liam Conejo Ramos.
Thousands of ICE agents are being sent to Democratic-led cities as President Donald Trump presses forward with a campaign to deport illegal immigrants across the country.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who visited Minneapolis on Thursday, confirmed that a 5-year-old child was among those detained. But he claimed the agents protected him after his father “ran” from officers.
“What should they do? Should they freeze a five-year-old to death?” he said.
UN Human Rights Representative Volker Turk called on US authorities to end their “harmful treatment of migrants and refugees”.
The boy’s father, Arias, was in a Texas detention center, but ICE’s database does not list the whereabouts of anyone under the age of 18.
“Expert who works with children”
Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, defended his agents’ treatment of Ramos, telling reporters on Friday: “I want to say unequivocally that we are experts in working with children.”
ICE Commander Marcos Charles said that “officers did everything in their power to reunite him with his family,” claiming that the family refused to open the door after his father left him and ran from the officers.
He added that they would be detained “pending immigration proceedings,” claiming they entered the United States illegally and are “subject to deportation.”
Ramos’ teacher, whose name is Ella, called him a “smart young student.”
In Minneapolis, where temperatures reached -23 degrees on Friday, demonstrators wearing hats, gloves and scarves chanted “ICE out” as part of a broader day of anti-ICE action.
Separately, protesters picketed outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport over the use of facilities to deport people swept up in immigration raids.
Methodist pastor Mariah Furness Thorgaard said in a statement that 100 clergy were arrested during the demonstration at the airport.
“As a faith leader in Minnesota, my tradition teaches that all people bear the image of God and are worthy of dignity and security. This moment requires all people of faith and moral conscience to rise up,” she said.
They were cited for misdemeanor charges of trespassing and failure to obey a security officer before being released, a Metropolitan Airport Commission spokesperson said.
“It’s just a baby.”
Former US Vice President Kamala Harris said she was “outraged” by Ramos’ detention and called him “just a baby.”
He is one of at least four children detained this month in the same Minneapolis school district, administrators said.
Minneapolis has been rocked by increasingly tense protests since January 7, when federal agents shot and killed American citizen Renee Good.
An autopsy concluded the killing was a homicide, but this classification does not automatically mean a crime was committed.
The officer who fired the shot that killed Good, Jonathan Ross, has not been suspended or charged.
Mark Prokosch, an attorney for Ramos and his father, said the asylum request in Minneapolis, a sanctuary city where police do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities, followed the law.
Minnesota is seeking a temporary restraining order on ICE operations in the state, which, if granted by a federal judge, would halt sweeps. A hearing on the application is expected to take place on Monday.
