By Gerren Keith Gaynor The Grio
Former Vice President Kamala Harris joined the chorus of people outraged by the ICE detainment of 5-year-old Liam Ramos in Minneapolis, drawing more attention to the Trump administration’s escalating immigration operation in Minnesota.
“Liam Ramos is just a baby. He should be at home with his family, not used as bait by ICE and held in a Texas detention center,” said Harris, the former presidential nominee, who was defeated by President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
America’s first Black and female vice president added, “I am outraged, and you should be too.”
Harris, who has been touring the country promoting her memoir, “107 Days,” which chronicles her historic presidential campaign as the first Black and South Asian woman to clinch a presidential nomination, has remained a frequent critic of the administration since Trump took office for a second term.
As theGrio previously reported, Ramos is among at least four children reportedly detained by ICE from the same school district in recent weeks. Ramos was taken into ICE custody on Tuesday, along with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, after agents descended on their driveway just after the father and son arrived from Liam’s preschool.
The Columbia Heights Public Schools District accused ICE agents of using 5-year-old Liam as “bait” by having him knock on the door of his home to see if anyone else was inside. The district also claims that another adult living in the home, who was outside at the time, “begged the agents” to leave the child with them; however, the ICE agents refused.
The father and son are now being held in San Antonio, Texas, by Homeland Security officials. A lawyer for the family says Liam and Arias are not U.S. citizens, but “have been following the legal process perfectly, from presenting themselves at the border to applying for asylum and waiting for the process to go through.”
Images of Liam wearing a blue fish hat during the ICE capture have sparked much outrage online from critics who describe this latest escalation by the Trump administration as cruel, particularly because Trump officials continue to claim they are only focusing their immigration enforcement on violent criminals.
Tensions in Minnesota also came to a head on Thursday after the Trump administration arrested three activists, two of whom are Black, connected to a church demonstration against ICE in protest of its pastor allegedly being an ICE field director.
“What we’re seeing is unprecedented, not just with the arrests, but what Minneapolis is actually experiencing right now,” Rod Adams, a Minnesota resident and executive director and founder of the New Justice Project, told theGrio. “We have a literal federal occupation of an American city trying to force the folks who are standing up against it to their knees as their neighbors are abducted in the middle of the night as their neighbors, children, are used as bait.”
Adams added, “I need Black folks to tag in. I need folks who don’t want to see this happen to their city to tag in. Because if it’s not in your city right now, it’s coming to a city near you.”
The community advocate urged American voters to express their outrage at the ballot box in November’s midterm elections. “What side you stand on in this moment will decide who we are as a people, where we move as a country, and what we’re able to accomplish together.”