Free the Columbia Heights Children Taken by ICE—Now
The Issue
What is happening to children in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, must stop.
Just days after the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos shocked the nation, two more children from the same elementary school—a second grader and a fifth grader—were taken into ICE custody along with their mother. These are not isolated incidents. At least six children from the Columbia Heights school district have now been detained by federal immigration agents in a single month.
According to school leaders, the children’s mother was detained during a routine court appointment—despite following the rules, maintaining documentation showing lawful presence, and being subject to a judge’s order barring deportation. With no relatives in Minnesota to care for the boys, she asked the only people she trusted—school staff—to bring her children to her.
Educators were forced to walk their crying students into a federal detention facility filled with armed agents, metal detectors, and masked officers. The children clung to a school nurse’s hands in fear. One principal described seeing other detained children inside, cartoons playing on a TV in a space that no child should ever have to enter.
This is not law enforcement. This is trauma.
School officials pleaded with ICE to allow the family to return home together. They presented the paperwork. They explained the judge’s order. They were told to wait for a supervisor—but no decision was made before they were forced to leave the children behind.
Families who are “doing everything right” are being punished. Children who should be learning, playing, and feeling safe are instead being sent to detention centers—often transported hundreds of miles away within hours, sometimes in direct contradiction of court orders.
This is not about politics. As one principal said, “It’s about treating people like humans.”
We call on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Minnesota’s federal representatives to:
- Immediately release the second-grade and fifth-grade students and their mother, Liam Ramos and his father, and every other child taken from Columbia Heights
- Reunite them with their community in Minnesota, and
- End the practice of detaining children and dragging schools into immigration enforcement.
Children are not collateral damage. Schools should never be turned into pipelines to detention.
Sign this petition to demand their freedom—and to say clearly: hands off our kids.
501
The Issue
What is happening to children in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, must stop.
Just days after the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos shocked the nation, two more children from the same elementary school—a second grader and a fifth grader—were taken into ICE custody along with their mother. These are not isolated incidents. At least six children from the Columbia Heights school district have now been detained by federal immigration agents in a single month.
According to school leaders, the children’s mother was detained during a routine court appointment—despite following the rules, maintaining documentation showing lawful presence, and being subject to a judge’s order barring deportation. With no relatives in Minnesota to care for the boys, she asked the only people she trusted—school staff—to bring her children to her.
Educators were forced to walk their crying students into a federal detention facility filled with armed agents, metal detectors, and masked officers. The children clung to a school nurse’s hands in fear. One principal described seeing other detained children inside, cartoons playing on a TV in a space that no child should ever have to enter.
This is not law enforcement. This is trauma.
School officials pleaded with ICE to allow the family to return home together. They presented the paperwork. They explained the judge’s order. They were told to wait for a supervisor—but no decision was made before they were forced to leave the children behind.
Families who are “doing everything right” are being punished. Children who should be learning, playing, and feeling safe are instead being sent to detention centers—often transported hundreds of miles away within hours, sometimes in direct contradiction of court orders.
This is not about politics. As one principal said, “It’s about treating people like humans.”
We call on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Minnesota’s federal representatives to:
- Immediately release the second-grade and fifth-grade students and their mother, Liam Ramos and his father, and every other child taken from Columbia Heights
- Reunite them with their community in Minnesota, and
- End the practice of detaining children and dragging schools into immigration enforcement.
Children are not collateral damage. Schools should never be turned into pipelines to detention.
Sign this petition to demand their freedom—and to say clearly: hands off our kids.
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Petition created on January 30, 2026