Thousands of people braved icy conditions on Friday, January 23, to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and businesses closed their doors amid anger over the detention of a 5-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.
Thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been deployed to the Democratic-led city, as President Donald Trump’s administration presses its campaign to deport what it says are millions of illegal immigrants across the country.
US Vice President Vance confirmed, on Thursday, that the 5-year-old boy was among those detained, but argued that agents were protecting him after his father “ran” from an immigration sweep. “What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death?” he said.
In Minneapolis, where temperatures touched -23ºC (-9ºF) 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.
Methodist pastor Mariah Furness Tollgaard said in a statement that 100 members of clergy were arrested and charged with trespassing and disobeying a peace officer on Friday, while demonstrating at the airport.
“As a faith leader in Minnesota, my tradition teaches that every person bears the image of God and is worthy of dignity and safety, and in this moment, all people of faith and moral conscience must stand up,” she said.
In Geneva, the UN rights chief Volker Turk called on US authorities to end the “dehumanizing portrayal and harmful treatment of migrants and refugees.” “I am astounded by the now-routine abuse and denigration of migrants and refugees,” he said in a statement. “Where is the concern for their dignity, and our common humanity?”
Minneapolis has been rocked by increasingly tense protests since federal agents shot and killed US citizen Renee Good on January 7. The officer who fired the shots that killed Good, Jonathan Ross, has neither been suspended nor charged with any crime. Trump and his officials quickly defended his actions as legitimate self-defense. An autopsy concluded that killing was a homicide, a classification that does not automatically mean a crime was committed.
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.