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The Columbia Heights Public School district says federal agents have detained four of its students in four separate incidents over the last two weeks. One child is a 5-year old boy who attends a district elementary school and was 

used as “bait” to draw family members out of their home

Masked agents apprehended the 5-year-old in his driveway on Tuesday as he returned home from school with his father.

“Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and was refused,” Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights superintendent, told reporters Wednesday.

“Instead,” she said, “the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the 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 5-year-old as bait.”

Agents later took the father and child away in a vehicle and sent them to Texas.

Stenvik said Liam’s family has an “active asylum case” with no deportation orders.

Responding to a question Thursday on the situation, Vice President JD Vance told reporters the father “was an illegal alien, and when they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran. 

“So the story is that ICE detained a 5-year-old, but what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?”

The latest on ICE in Minnesota

Elizabeth Shockman

Author

The Columbia Heights Public School district says federal agents have detained four of its students in four separate incidents over the last two weeks. One child is a 5-year old boy who attends a district elementary school and was used as “bait” to draw family members out of their home.

A young boy with a backpack and blue hat stands next to an SUV.

ICE detained a 5-year old Minnesota boy. School leader says agents used him as ‘bait’

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