Two Minnesota boys from Liam Ramos’ school released from ICE custody
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Two Minnesota children — a second grader and a fifth grader — who were taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last week have been released and returned to their home.
The boys attend the same Columbia Heights elementary school as Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old whose detainment by ICE last month gripped the Twin Cities and the nation as images of the small boy in his winter hat flanked by agents circulated online.
The two siblings last week were brought by school staff to the Whipple Federal Building near Fort Snelling at their mother’s request after she was detained by federal agents during a court appointment.
The family was flown that same day to an ICE family detention center in Dilley, Texas, despite showing immigration officials they had documentation to prove the family’s lawful presence in the United States.
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On Wednesday, the children and their mother were released and flown back to Minnesota. Jason Kuhlman, principal of Valley View Elementary School in Columbia Heights, picked them up at the Twin Cities airport and brought them home safely.
“Mother and sons are in good health and eager to resume the boys’ schooling,” school officials said in a statement. Their names were not disclosed.
The two elementary school children were the latest Columbia Heights students to have been detained by federal agents. District officials say six of their kids were detained in January as family members were taken into custody.
District says some children still missing
District officials say there are numerous other children still missing from their schools, but it’s unclear whether they’ve been detained or have moved away with their families.
In recent weeks, school officials and lawyers for detained children say ICE has been sending Minnesota families to the Texas detention center within hours of their arrests — in some cases without providing them required access to legal counsel.
In several cases, these out-of-state removals happened against the orders of a judge.
Columbia Heights district leaders say the two children who returned with their mother on Wednesday found one of their fifth grade classmates from Valley View Elementary while they were at the Dilley facility.
The fifth grader, her mother and stepfather were last in contact with Valley View Elementary on Jan. 9.
“School staff have been trying to reach them since that time and did not know where they were,” the Columbia Heights school leaders said in a statement. “While it is difficult to find out that they have been in this detention facility for almost a month now, district staff have been able to connect the family with legal representation.”
Columbia Heights has located one of its high school students at Dilley but the district said “there are other students with whom we have lost contact who might also be in a detention facility.”
