A senior official of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the city of Minneapolis, in the US state of Minnesota, this Friday accused the father of the five-year-old boy allegedly detained at the beginning of this week for “abandoning his son” to flee from the authorities and has defended that his agents did “everything possible” to guarantee the well-being of the minor and reunite him with his family.
“When the officers approached, the father (Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias) and his son (Liam) were in a vehicle. Arias fled from law enforcement on foot, abandoning his son in the middle of winter inside the vehicle. One of our agents stayed with the child, while other agents detained his father,” said the top ICE official in MinneapolisMarcos Charles, at a press conference.
The officer insisted that one of his agents was with the boy at all times while others detained his father and assured that, “after the arrest, they stayed with him, took care of him, took him to eat something and spent hours making sure he was well taken care of.” “My officers did that, not your father,” he said and emphasized “the human side” of his troops, who do “everything in their power not to separate families.”
Likewise, Charles stated that his agents “did everything possible to reunite him with his family” and has reported that, “tragically,” “the people who were inside (his house) refused to receive him and open the door.” “Let me say it again: They saw the boy and they refused to open the door and take him back,” he said.
The ICE representative in Minnesota clarified that the agency did not have target the child and revealed that, after “Conejo Arias finally requested that his son remain with him (…), they were taken together back to Minneapolis, to the city, to the ICE facilities for processing,” where “they are now being well cared for in a family residential center, while their immigration procedures are resolved.”
“This is the true face of ICE. The media doesn’t know our officers; we do. My officers do the right thing, no matter how difficult or how long it takes, all day long,” Charles said.
These statements come after the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, denied this Thursday that a five-year-old child had been detained by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service during his deployment in the state of Minnesota, after the image of the minor being guarded by an agent became public.
Already then, the Department of Homeland Security argued that the events had occurred on Tuesday when ICE carried out a “specific operation to arrest” a man identified as Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias, who “abandoned” his son when the agents approached.
However, the north minneapolis public school district He reported that in recent weeks ICE agents have detained four of his students, including a five-year-old child. Two of them were on their way to school when the arrest took place, according to the American television network NBC.
Tension in Minnesota has increased in recent days following the shooting death of Renee Good at the hands of a federal agent in Minneapolisalthough ICE’s actions have been under scrutiny by the opposition and civil society since the start of deployments in 2025.
