The mother of a 5-year-old boy at the center of a viral immigration controversy repeatedly declined to take custody of her son after federal agents attempted several times to return the child to her in Minneapolis, according to federal authorities.
The case of young Liam Ramos has been seized upon by Democrats and corporate media as a symbol of alleged Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) overreach, with some commentators claiming the agency detained a small child and even set out to arrest him.
However, according to The Post Millennial, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has provided a markedly different account, stating that Liams illegal immigrant father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, abandoned the boy when ICE officers moved in to arrest him and that the childs mother refused custody when agents tried multiple times to place the boy with her.
DHS, pushing back against the narrative that ICE targeted the child, emphasized that officers acted to protect Liam after his parents failed to do so. The child was ABANDONDED by his father, and the alleged mother REFUSED to take custody of her own child. Our law enforcement took care of the child, got him McDonalds and played him his favorite music to comfort him. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates, DHS said in a post on X.
Despite these details, activists and some media outlets have continued to frame the incident as an example of harsh immigration enforcement under a system they oppose, rather than a case of parental irresponsibility and lawful arrest. Liam is currently being held with his father in an immigration detention facility, a fact critics have used to fuel outrage while largely ignoring the agencys account that officers tried to reunite the child with his mother.
Pastor Serigo Amezcua, who has been assisting the couple, advanced the claim that ICE agents were using the child as leverage to arrest the mother as well. ICE agents were trying to use the baby to get her to come out of her house, but the neighbors advised her not to do it, the pastor said, per CNN, further alleging that agents were using the child as bait in order to take the mother into custody.
ICE officials have firmly rejected that characterization, insisting that their personnel acted appropriately and with concern for the childs welfare. The acting executive associate director of ICE Enforcement, Marcos Charles, stated, My officers did everything they could to reunite him with his family.
Local law enforcement on the scene described a mother torn between emotional anguish and the consequences of her familys unlawful presence in the country. I entered the home and the mother was distraught. She wanted Liam, Superintendent Zena Stenvik said, per Fox 12. She wanted to open the door, and I cant even imagine as a mother myself how conflicted she must have been seeing her husband standing in the driveway in handcuffs, saying, dont open the door, and also hearing her little one, and she could see the ICE agent standing there at the door.
Stenvik underscored the emotional toll of the situation while acknowledging the mothers confusion amid a lawful enforcement action. I just cant imagine as a mother what she was going through, Stenvik added. It was heartbreaking for me to hear her, and she looked up at me and said, I dont understand whats happening. Were not criminals.'
The episode highlights a recurring pattern in the immigration debate, where lawful enforcement under existing statutes is cast by the left as cruelty, while the role of parental decisions and illegal entry is downplayed or ignored.
As President Trump and many conservatives have long argued, a nation that refuses to enforce its borders invites precisely these tragic, avoidable confrontations, in which children are placed at risk not by ICE officers following the law, but by adults who choose to defy it.
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