Five-year-old Liam Ramos had just returned home from preschool when he, along with his father, was arrested in the driveway of their Minneapolis-area home on Tuesday.
On Friday, Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the boy and his father were being held in ICE custody in Texas. He said he was initially taken aback by the arrest but later changed his mind.
"What are they going to do? Are they going to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?" Vance said in response to the growing criticism during a press conference in Minneapolis.
Stores are closed
According to American media, however, Liam Ramos' mother and older brother were just a few meters away, inside the family's home, at the time of the arrest. The family's lawyer states that the family, who are from Ecuador, entered the United States legally and applied for asylum.
Many stores, restaurants and cultural institutions in Minnesota are closed on Friday in protest against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after more than 100 unions and other organizations urged residents to stay away from work and school.
"We really, really want ICE to leave Minnesota, and they won't leave Minnesota unless there's tremendous pressure on them," Kate Havelin of the organization Indivisible Twin Cities told the AP.
“Routine abuse”
Since the mother of three, Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen, was shot dead by an ICE agent on January 7, daily protests against immigration police have been held in Minneapolis and the neighboring city of Saint Paul.
On Friday, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk criticized the United States' "now routine abuse and humiliation of migrants and refugees." In a statement, he called on the U.S. government to stop tearing families apart.
"The United States has an obligation to comply with international human rights law and international refugee law," he said.
