Trump promised voters lower food prices, a revival of manufacturing and more affordable health care. He hasn’t been able to achieve any of them. But he brought Minneapolis under siege.
ICE officer “looking for child” enters restaurant with gun drawn
An ICE agent walks into a Thai restaurant in Minnesota with a gun drawn. USA TODAY has asked DHS for a statement.
When President Donald Trump promised Americans a new golden age, I never expected that low-rent mall cops, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, would seize angelic-faced 5-year-olds from the streets of Midwestern cities and use them as bait.
But here we are, in the America that perhaps the Republicans wanted. If you’ve never seen a photo of young Liam Conejo Ramos braving the winter cold wearing a blue bunny hat and a small backpack over a plaid coat, you have a moral obligation to find the photo and take a closer look.
Liam was arrested on January 20th by masked ICE agents who were carrying out terrorist activities across Minnesota. The 5-year-old is a student at Valley View Elementary School in Columbia Heights, just north of Minneapolis.
Was a 5-year-old used as bait by undercover ICE agents? Is this your golden age?
Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik said undercover police officers attacked Liam and his father as they were walking home from an all-boys school.
“Another adult living in the home went outside and begged staff to let him take care of the young child, but was refused,” Stenbic said. “Instead, the agent removed the child from the still-running vehicle, led him to the door, knocked on the door and asked him to come in to see if anyone else was home, essentially baiting the 5-year-old.”
Mark Prokosch, an attorney representing the Ramos family, said the family is pursuing asylum and is “doing everything asked of us” in accordance with immigration procedures.
The father has no deportation order or criminal history in the United States, and the Department of Homeland Security claims no criminal history.
Families are separated, children are traumatized: ICE’s brutality knows no bounds.
The boy and his father are currently in a Texas detention center, while his mother and younger brother are left stranded in Columbia Heights, in the Upper Midwest.
Imagine that child now experiencing completely unnecessary trauma at the hands of our government. Then look at Liam’s photo and ask yourself if this is what you think of as the Golden Age.
Although the Trump administration has tried to portray its draconian deportation surge as ridding the United States of violent criminals, the facts show that most of those arrested have no criminal history at all. Even after ICE agents shot and killed a mother of three in Minneapolis, the government sought to paint opponents of the poorly trained federal thugs as enemies.
And now Liam Ramos, immeasurably innocent, has been led by an undercover agent in all black to a knock on his door, then transported across the country and caged.
Liam Ramos wasn’t a threat to anyone. Even if you catch him, your soul won’t be saved.
That boy didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but he definitely is hurting now. And our government did this to him.
Trump promised voters lower food prices, a revival of manufacturing and more affordable health care. He hasn’t been able to achieve any of them.
However, he placed Minneapolis and St. Paul, the capital of neighboring Minnesota, under siege. He blew off the murder of an innocent American mother as if it was nothing. He gave us a photo of Liam Ramos, and you can see in that five-year-old’s eyes the kind of fear and confusion that no child should ever experience.
Is this what you wanted, Republicans? you need to answer.
So I have to ask Republican voters: Is this the golden age you were hoping for? When the slogan “Mass deportation now!” was raised. Couldn’t he have predicted the frightened eyes of a kid in a bunny hat who was dragged away from his family while signing autographs at the Republican National Convention? Can you distort your own morality to justify a world where monsters actually exist?
Look at the photo of that cute boy. Give yourself a moment of compassion. Then take a good look in the mirror, take a hard look at your grocery bill, and think about whether this fear is worth it without getting anything in return.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk..
