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MINNEAPOLIS — <\/span>The detention of a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy with his father outside their home in Minnesota has become the latest lightning rod for America\u2019s divisions on immigration under the Trump administration. Versions offered by government officials and the family’s attorney and neighbors offer contradictory versions of whether the parents were given adequate opportunity to leave the child with someone else.<\/p>\n Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as \u201cbait\u201d<\/a> by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security calls that description of events an \u201cabject lie.\u201d It says the father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, fled on foot and left the boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, in a running vehicle in their driveway.<\/p>\n The dueling narratives come just two weeks after the deadly shooting of Renee Good<\/a> in Minneapolis by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer that witnesses also viewed as a blatant abuse of power \u2014 and that the government defended as a legitimate act of self-defense. <\/p>\n The father and son are now at family detention facility in Dilley, Texas, near San Antonio. <\/p>\n Federal officials say the father was in the U.S. illegally, without offering details. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said he came illegally in December 2024. <\/p>\n The family\u2019s attorney said he had a pending asylum claim allowing him to stay in the country.<\/p>\n Both can be true. The government may have tried deporting him after determining he entered illegally but he may have exercised a legal right to seek asylum, putting his removal on hold until a judge rules on his claim.<\/p>\n An online court summary shows the case was filed on Dec. 17, 2024, and is assigned to the immigration court inside the Dilley detention center. <\/p>\n Here’s a look at what various officials, lawyers and others are saying about the case: <\/p>\n Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik told reporters that the officers instructed the boy to knock on the door to his home to see if other people were inside, \u201cessentially using a 5-year-old as bait,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The father told the child\u2019s mother, who was inside, not to open the door, Stenvik said. <\/p>\n School officials said the agents wouldn\u2019t leave Liam with other adults. <\/p>\n A photo of the boy wearing a beanie and a Spiderman backpack has circulated widely on social media, sparking strong reactions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy detain a 5-year-old?\u201d the superintendent asked. \u201cYou cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n School officials said other adults at the scene offered to care for the boy but were ignored by agents, including a neighbor who said they had papers authorizing her to take care of Liam on behalf of the parents. <\/p>\n Mary Granlund, school board chair for Columbia Heights, said she told agents that she also could take care of him.<\/p>\n \u201cICE did NOT target, arrest a child or use a child as \u2018bait,\u2019\u201d said Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. \u201cICE law enforcement officers were the only people primarily concerned with the welfare of this child. \u201d<\/p>\n McLaughlin said the child was abandoned and officers tried extensively to get the mother to take custody of the child. \u201cOfficers even assured her she would NOT be taken her into custody.\u201d<\/p>\n The officers, she said, \u201cabided by the father\u2019s wishes to keep the child with him.”<\/p>\n At a news conference Friday, Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino<\/a> criticized what he called the \u201cfalse media narrative\u201d about the case.<\/p>\n Marcos Charles, acting executive associate director of ICE enforcement and removal operations, faulted the father for \u201cabandoning his child in the middle of winter in a vehicle.\u201d He told reporters one officer stayed with the child while others arrested the father. He said his officers then got food for the boy, and \u201cdid everything they could to reunite him with his family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTragically, when we approached the door of his residence, the people inside refused to take him in and open the door. … Fortunately, Conejo Arias eventually requested that his child stay with him,” Charles said.<\/p>\n And Charles said he didn’t know what had become of the child’s mother.<\/p>\n They’re at a family detention center in Dilley, Texas,<\/a> where families have reported that children are malnourished, ill and suffering from prolonged detention. Conditions there are worse than ever, said Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at Children\u2019s Rights, who visited the facility last week.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number of children had skyrocketed and significant numbers of children had been detained for over 100 days,\u201d Welch said. The administration in December acknowledged that about 400 children<\/a> had faced extended detention.<\/p>\n \u201cNearly every child we spoke to was sick,\u201d Welch said.<\/p>\n Bovino pointed out that when U.S. citizens anywhere in the country are arrested and jailed by their local police, they get separated from their children.<\/p>\n \u201cI challenge any other law enforcement agency anywhere nationwide to show me the fantastic care that ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol provide children,\u201d Bovino said.<\/p>\n If Liam wasn’t with his father, Bovino said, he could have ended up in the custody of social services without a parent instead.<\/p>\n Charles said people at the family centers \u201cget top-notch care. They have medical care. The food is good. They have learning services. They have church services available. They have recreation.\u201d<\/p>\n