U.S. Vice President JD Vance defended Thursday that immigration agents did not detain a five-year-old child in a raid in Minnesota, but took care of him because the father fled when authorities arrived.
“What were they going to do? Let him freeze in the street?”, Vance told the press during a visit to the state of Minnesota, which in recent weeks has become the focus of immigration raids by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
JD Vance denies child’s detention by ICE
A five-year-old boy is escorted by an immigration agent, who is holding him by his Spiderman school bag. He and his father, asylum seekers, have been detained at the entrance of their home. pic.twitter.com/DF7nhA3ZzE
– Ibon Perez (@IbonPerezTV) January 23, 2026
The purpose of the vice president’s visit was to show his “unwavering support” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who have been under fire for increasingly aggressive techniques in their operations.
According to a press release from Columbia Heights (Minn.) Public Schools, five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were stopped in the driveway of their home on Tuesday, just as they were returning home from school.
After arresting the father, the agents also took the child instead of leaving him in the care of another adult at his home, as the school district reported, and both were taken into custody by Homeland Security authorities in San Antonio, according to The Washington Post.
Vance said Thursday that “as a parent” he was concerned when he learned of the alleged juvenile arrests, because in addition to the five-year-old boy, local authorities in Minnesota had reported the arrest of three more.
However, the vice-president stated that upon investigating the matter it became clear that minors are not being detained.
Tensions in Minnesota rose in the wake of the death of Renée Good, the mother of three who was shot to death this month by an ICE agent in Minneapolis and has become a symbol of the arbitrary behavior of some ICE agents.
The vice president traveled Thursday to Minnesota after making a stop in Ohio, in what can already be considered the kickoff of the campaign for the midterm elections on November 3, in which the Republican majority in Congress will be at stake.
Filed under: Child ICE Detention
With information from EFE
