ICE Detains 5-Year-Old in Backpack, Apparently Upgrade to Human Bait 2.0
KEY POINTS
- •ICE agents in Minneapolis detained 5-year-old Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias' son after his father fled arrest for alleged immigration violations.
- •The boy and Arias, an Ecuadorian asylum seeker, were held at Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas with hundreds of detainees.
- •Officials claimed the child was not targeted and highlighted current policies of detaining children with parents to avoid separation.
In a story that sounds like a rejected Black Mirror episode, ICE agents in Minneapolis scooped up a 5-year-old boy wearing a tiny backpack and azure stocking cap after his dad, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias from Ecuador, apparently turned Houdini on immigration officers. Officials insist the kid wasn’t 'bait,' despite fueling Twin Cities’ outrage over immigration enforcement tactics, which somehow include bundling kids and parents like weird summer camp punishment. Arias and his son were shipped off to Dilley Processing Center, Texas, home to about 700 detainees averaging 20-day stays. Meanwhile, Homeland Security's Tricia McLaughlin claimed ICE asked parents if they wanted their kids detained or handed off — elegant parental fencing! Sociologist Joanna Dreby warned this is straight-up child trauma, and schoolkids around Minnesota now consider their classrooms less safe than a Game of Thrones episode. Vice President Vance chimed in, threatening that parents could soon claim 'child shielding' to dodge the law — what a legal plot twist!
Share the Story
When ICE starts using 5-year-olds like fishing lures, you know family detention heard someone saying 'empathy' and said nope, we prefer trauma with a side of bewildered toddlers.
Nothing like sending a 5-year-old to Dilley, Texas, to prove family detention centers as charming as reruns of The Office — awkward, unnecessarily long, and emotionally disturbing.
ICE protecting families by jointly locking them up, because health experts say 'nothing builds bonds like trauma-induced PTSD.'
Source: Axios | Published: 1/23/2026 | Author: Brittany Gibson
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