ICE Detains a 5-Year-Old Boy Coming Home From Preschool in a Minneapolis Suburb

In late January 2026, federal immigration agents in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, detained a five-year-old boy as he arrived home from preschool, taking him and his father to a detention facility in Texas. School officials and the family's lawyer said the family had an active asylum case and had not been ordered to leave the country. School officials said agents had earlier taken the boy out of a car in the family's driveway and instructed him to knock on the door of his home, accusing ICE of using the child as "bait." The Washington Post reported he was the fourth child from the same suburb detained in recent weeks.

Vice President JD Vance defended the agents during a January 22 visit to Minnesota: "When they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran. So the story is that ICE detained a 5-year-old. Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?"