January 27 marks one week since Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old Ecuadorian boy, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis while returning from school with his father. Images of the child, wearing his blue hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack, guarded by federal agents, instantly became a symbol of the indiscriminate nature of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown in the United States, and reopened the debate about the treatment of children in migrant detention centers.
When she arrived, Stenvik said the father's car was still running and the father and son had already been apprehended. An agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in, in order to see if anyone else was home essentially using a five-year-old as bait, the superintendent said in a statement.
A coalition of over 100 U.S. groups is demanding that Israeli officials release 16-year-old Palestinian American Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim from imprisonment, warning that authorities are starving him and denying him medical care as they've barred the child from seeing his family for over six months. The groups called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to act to end Mohammed's "unjust" imprisonment in Israel's Ofer prison, a facility notorious for its abuses against Palestinians, including children.
A 7-year-old Queens girl and her family were arrested by ICE while attending a court hearing at 26 Federal Plaza, marking the first known instance of this happening.
