Greg Bovino defended ICE detaining a 5-year-old in Minneapolis, insisting agents are \u2018experts in dealing with children.\u2019 The Border Patrol chief said Liam Ramos is with his dad in a Texas detention facility and \u2018it doesn\u2019t get any better than that.\u201d<\/b>
\nthe photo of a 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat being detained by a masked ICE agent, who loomed behind the boy with a hand on his Spider-Man backpack, went viral. People were horrified by a statement from the public school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, that said Liam Conejo Ramos was \u201capprehended with his father while in their driveway\u201d after arriving home from preschool on Tuesday and was used as \u201cbait\u201d to try to lure other people out of the house. Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, are now in a Texas detention center, though the school said adults on the scene had \u201cbegged\u201d the ICE agent to leave the boy in their care.
On Friday, Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino gave an update on Liam, saying he\u2019s actually being \u201cwell cared for\u201d in the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas (though other Dilley detainees have claimed they were subjected to moldy food, a lack of drinkable water, and inadequate medical care).
\u201cThat child is in the least restrictive setting possible,\u201d Bovino said, adding that the father and son are together and \u201cI don\u2019t think it gets any better than that.\u201d
The Border Patrol chief strongly defended U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s treatment of minors amid the deportation surge in Minneapolis, saying despite what you might have heard or seen on social media, they\u2019re actually great with kids.
\u201cI will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children,\u201d Bovino said. \u201cLet me say that again: experts in dealing with children, not because we want to be but because we have to be.\u201d
Bovino: „Here in the US Border Patrol, I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children“ pic.twitter.com\/N3M8Xf2Yez\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 23, 2026
When asked at the same press conference if Conejo Arias has a criminal record, Marcos Charles, an ICE official, said he would have to get back to the reporter. The family\u2019s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, has said Conejo Arias has no criminal record, and CNN found no evidence to contradict that.
Prokosch said the father and son should never have been detained. He said Liam and the rest of the family are originally from Ecuador and have been following all the rules as they apply for asylum.
Charles said that the family had entered the country illegally and that Conejo Arias had been ordered to leave. Charles repeated a claim, which was put out by DHS on Wednesday and later echoed by Vice-President J.D. Vance, that Liam had been \u201cabandoned\u201d by his father and that ICE agents rescued him. Per the New York Times:
After the man was detained, Mr. Charles said, Liam had been taken to the door of his home in order to return him to his family. \u201cTragically, when we approached the door of his residence, the people inside refused to take him in and open the door,\u201d Mr. Charles said.
\u201cMy officers stayed with the child, he said. \u201cThey cared for him, took him to get something to eat from a drive-through restaurant and spent hours ensuring he was taken care of. Not his father.\u201d
Witness Mary Granlund, the school-board chair in Columbia Heights, described an entirely different scene at a press conference on Wednesday. She said she stopped while driving her own children home when she noticed a commotion. As she got out of her vehicle, she heard people shouting, \u201cWhat are you doing? Don\u2019t take the child!\u201d
Liam\u2019s mother was looking out the window, according to Granland, and his father was yelling, \u201cPlease do not open the door! Don\u2019t open the door!\u201d because she would be taken too. Pastor Sergio Amezcua, who has been helping the family this week, told CNN the mother is pregnant and also has a teenage son.
Grandland said people were pleading with ICE to let Liam stay with his mother, another adult who lived with them and was outside the house, or even herself as she\u2019s a school official. \u201cThere was ample opportunity to be able to safely hand that child off to adults,\u201d Grandland said.
This doesn\u2019t sound like the behavior you would expect from ICE\u2019s \u201cexperts at dealing with children.\u201d Until we learn more facts about the case, you\u2019ll just have to decide whether you believe the school official on the scene or the Border Patrol chief who has credibly been accused of \u201cNazi cosplay.\u201d<\/p>\n