At least four children, including a five-year-old boy, were detained by US immigration officials from a suburb in Minneapolis, Minnesota this week, according to school officials and a lawyer for the family.
The five-year-old Ecuadorean boy and his father - both in the country legally as asylum applicants - were taken to a family detention facility in Dilley, Texas, said Marc Prokosch, an attorney representing the family who is attempting to gain their release.
However, US Vice President JD Vance accused the media of misrepresenting the incident, saying the boy was left behind when his father fled agents.
Zena Stenvik, superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public School District in Minneapolis, told a press conference that armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers had apprehended four students as of this week, listing two 17-year-olds and a ten-year-old in addition to the five-year-old boy, Liam Conejo Ramos.
"ICE agents have been roaming our neighbourhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lots multiple times and taking our kids," Ms Stenvik said.
"The onslaught of ice activity in our community is inducing trauma and is taking a toll on our children."
It comes as Mr Vance visited Minneapolis amid tensions over the presence of armed immigration officers.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, he defended immigration officers and said that they were pursuing the boy's father, who ran away, leaving officers no choice but to take the boy.
As "the father of a five-year-old" himself, Mr Vance acknowledged he was stunned by news of the child's predicament at first.
"I think to myself 'Oh, my God, this is terrible. How did we arrest a five-year-old?'" Mr Vance said.
He then said that he did more research and changed his mind because ICE detained the child after his father ran from immigration agents.
"Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?"
The Department of Homeland Security said Liam's father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, was in the country illegally but did not provide details.
Liam, wearing a blue hat and a Spider-Man backpack, watched as masked agents took his father from the driveway of their home after the two returned from preschool on Tuesday, according to witnesses.
School officials, an adult from the family home and neighbours all offered to take the boy, only to be denied by ICE officials, according to witnesses including Mary Granlund, the chair of the Columbia Heights school board.
Ms Granlund said school officials are authorised to take custody of a child in the absence of a parent.
The boy's mother was inside the home, but her husband instructed her to remain inside, most likely to avoid detention herself, Ms Granlund told reporters.
"The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken and our hearts are shattered, and honestly, at the end of the day, children should be in school with their classmates," Ms Granlund said.
The officers put the child in the back seat of a black SUV and sped away, said Rachel James, a Columbia Heights city council member who also witnessed the events.
"I can't imagine what was going through Liam's mind, but I can tell you what I saw on his face. He was frozen and paralysed," Ms James said yesterday. "He was not crying, but he looked so scared."
Mr Prokosch denied that the boy's father was in the US illegally and said Minnesota records did not show any criminal history for the family.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
They were awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, he said.
The detentions form part of US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, which has deployed about 3,000 federal law enforcement officers to the Minneapolis area, where people have been on edge since an immigration officer shot and killed Renee Good, 37, a US citizen and mother of three, on 7 January.
Heavily armed federal officers have pursued suspects they say are dangerous criminals and immigration violators, while protesters unnerved by the show of force have responded with their own observer patrols, blowing whistles to warn people of ICE raids while voicing displeasure with Mr Trump's escalation.
Minnesota has sought a temporary restraining order for the ICE operation in the state which, if granted by a federal judge, would pause the sweeps. There will be a hearing on the application on Monday.
The officer who fired the shots that killed Ms Good, Jonathan Ross, has neither been suspended nor charged with any crime.
Mr Trump and his officials quickly defended his actions as being legitimately made in self-defence.
