Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent said officers asked the boy to knock on his home's door to check if others were inside, a move she criticised as 'using a child as bait'.
A five-year-old boy returning from preschool in Minnesota was detained by United States immigration officers along with his father and taken to a federal detention facility in Texas, triggering widespread concern among school officials and rights groups.
The child, Liam Conejo Ramos, was taken from a car in his driveway by federal agents on Tuesday, according to Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik, the Associated Press reported.
Stenvik said officers asked the boy to knock on his home's door to check if others were inside, a move she criticised as 'using a child as bait'.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arresting the father, an Ecuadorian national allegedly staying illegally, and denied targeting the child.
Officials said the father chose to keep the child with him and both are now held at a family detention centre in Dilley, Texas.
The family arrived in the US in 2024 and has an active asylum case. The detention has heightened fears among immigrant families, with school attendance dropping sharply amid ongoing immigration raids in Minnesota.
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