Once again, Minnesota Democrats rushed to the cameras with an emotional story about ICE allegedly targeting a child, and once again the facts completely undercut their narrative. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the 5-year-old boy at the center of the controversy was not detained by ICE at all. He was abandoned by his illegal immigrant father during a federal enforcement operation.
The incident unfolded in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, after Governor Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar circulated a photo of the boy and accused ICE of grabbing him while he was returning home from preschool. Predictably, the media ran with it. The White House did not.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called the story another example of Democrats and the press spreading misinformation about immigration enforcement. She said ICE officers acted professionally and stayed with the child after his father fled the scene. According to DHS, the father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, an illegal alien from Ecuador released into the country under the Biden administration, ran from agents and left his son behind in the vehicle.
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ICE says one officer remained with the child to ensure his safety while other agents apprehended the father. DHS also said agents repeatedly tried to reunite the boy with his mother, who was inside the home, but she refused to take custody even after being told she would not be detained. At the father’s request, the child remained with him, and both are now together at a family detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
That is a far cry from the image Democrats pushed of federal agents snatching a child off the street.
Nevertheless, outrage poured in. Walz accused ICE of intimidation. Omar claimed the agency was lying about targeting “the worst of the worst.” Even Hillary Clinton jumped in, condemning the use of children in enforcement actions. ICE responded bluntly, calling the accusations an “abject lie” and reiterating that the child was abandoned by his father, not detained by agents.
Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik echoed the activist line, asking why a child was involved at all, as if the answer is not obvious. The child was involved because his father chose to flee law enforcement and leave him behind.
What gets lost in all of this performative outrage is the real consequence of these lies. DHS says assaults against ICE officers have surged by 1300 percent, fueled by reckless rhetoric from elected Democrats amplified by a compliant press. Meanwhile, the Trump administration says it has located more than 120,000 migrant children lost under Joe Biden’s watch.
This episode is not about compassion. It is about politics. Democrats saw a photo, invented a narrative, and hoped no one would check the facts. Unfortunately for them, DHS did, and the truth once again tells a very different story.
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