Defiant protests over US immigration crackdown, child's detention

Thousands of people braved icy conditions on Friday (23 January) to protest the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and businesses closed their doors amid anger over the detention of a five-year-old migrant boy.

Dozens of eateries, attraction sites and other businesses shuttered as part of a day of coordinated action to defy the weeks-long federal immigration operation underway in Minnesota.

Images of an apparently terrified pre-schooler, Liam Conejo Ramos, being held by immigration officers who were seeking to arrest the boy's father have rekindled public outrage at the federal crackdown, during which an agent shot and killed a US citizen.

The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Ramos was a preschool student, said the child and his Ecuadoran father, Adrian Conejo Arias -- both asylum seekers -- were taken from their driveway as they arrived home on Tuesday.

Ramos was then used as "bait" by officers to draw out those inside his home, superintendent Zena Stenvik added.

One protester, who declined to be named, told AFP he was marching "because if we don't fight, we don't win. If we don't fight, fascism wins."

The local man held a sign reading "five-years-old, dude," a reference to Ramos.

"This shouldn't be happening to anybody, but it absolutely should not have been happening to children," he said.

Thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been deployed to the Democratic-led city, as President Donald Trump presses his campaign to deport undocumented immigrants across the country.

On a visit to Minneapolis on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance confirmed Ramos was among those detained. But he argued that agents were protecting him after his father "ran" from officers.

"What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?" he said.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk called on US authorities to end the "harmful treatment of migrants and refugees."

Arias, the father of the boy, was at a Texas detention facility, according to an ICE database that does not list the whereabouts of under-18s.

'Dealing with children'

Border Patrol senior official Gregory Bovino defended his officers' treatment of Ramos, telling reporters Friday: "I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children."

ICE commander Marcos Charles said on Friday that "my officers did everything they could to reunite him with his family" and alleged that Ramos's family refused to open the door to him after his father left him and ran from officers.

They would be detained "pending their immigration proceedings," he added after alleging they entered the United States illegally and were "deportable."

Ramos's teacher, whose name was given as Ella, called him "a bright young student."

In Minneapolis, where temperatures touched -23C on Friday, protesters wrapped in hats, gloves and scarves chanted "ICE out" as part of a broader anti-ICE day of action.

Separately, protesters picketed outside Minneapolis St Paul airport over the facility's use for deporting those swept up in immigration raids, with local media citing organisers as saying some 100 clergy were arrested.

'Being brutal'

Former US vice president Kamala Harris said she was "outraged" by Ramos's detention and called him "just a baby."

Ramos is one of at least four children detained in the same Minneapolis school district this month, administrators said.

Minneapolis has been rocked by increasingly tense protests since federal agents shot and killed US citizen Renee Good on January 7.

An autopsy concluded that killing was a homicide, a classification that does not automatically mean a crime was committed.

The officer who fired the shots that killed Good, Jonathan Ross, has neither been suspended nor charged.

Marc Prokosch, the lawyer for Ramos and his father, said they followed the law in applying for asylum in Minneapolis, a sanctuary city where police do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Children have been caught up in immigration enforcement under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Minnesota has sought a temporary restraining order for the ICE operation in the state, which, if granted by a federal judge, would pause the sweeps. There will be a hearing on the application on Monday.

ICE were "not following the law, and really they're being mean to all our neighbours here in Minnesota," a protester who gave their name only as Aron told AFP.

"They're actually being brutal."