Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Liam Rabbit is still too young to understand what's happening around him, but he's perhaps certain of one thing: one day his everyday life was disrupted when men in ski masks took him away from Minneapolis.
His frightened and disoriented face at the door of a vehicle circulated on social media and immediately dominated the news spaces and channels of the United States. Many could not believe the headlines: Five-year-old boy arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Outrage swelled. Once again, Minneapolis was at the center of what the repressive immigration policy of Donald Trump's administration means.
Little Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo, an Ecuadorian national, were detained on January 20 by ICE agents in Columbia Heights, a suburb of Minneapolis, and transferred to the Dilley detention center in Texas.
The circumstances remain unclear, but lawyer Marc Prokosch said that "the family complied with all applicable norms (...) They did not enter the country illegally. They are not criminals." And after crossing through an official border point, they filed an asylum application that is currently in process.
Zena Stenvik, Superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, recounted that an ICE agent took Liam out of the police vehicle, led him to the door of his house, and ordered him to call to be let in. This indicates that they used a "five-year-old child as bait," she emphasized.
However, the Department of Homeland Security offered a different version. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claims the father fled, abandoning his son. And "for the child's safety, one of our agents stayed with him while the others detained the father," she stated, according to The Washington Post.
Liam is the fourth student from the district detained by ICE agents since early January. On January 6, a 10-year-old girl was intercepted on her way to her school center when she was with her mother. They were taken to Texas.
Later, on January 14, a 17-year-old girl and her mother were detained inside their home, and on that same day, a 17-year-old boy was pulled from his vehicle by "armed and masked agents," without his parents present.
All this adds to an environment of widespread protests against ICE, especially due to three shootings involving agency officers, two of them fatal.
First, the point-blank murder of Renee Good on January 7, and yesterday under almost similar conditions, that of Alex Pretti. Both were 37-year-old U.S. citizens. On January 14, a Venezuelan-born immigrant was shot in the leg.
Trump describes ICE agents as "patriots," while Governor Tim Walz warned on X that "Minnesota has had enough. This is disgusting."
The governor, running mate of Kamala Harris in the 2024 elections, demanded that "the president must end this operation. Remove the thousands of violent and untrained agents from Minnesota. Now."
A suggestive comment appeared on social media: "Repression, murders, human rights violations, riot control chemical gases. What would happen if the Minneapolis scenario were in some country uncomfortable for Washington?" (Source: Prensa Latina)
