Former ICE chief on risks of detaining a 5-year-old

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a 5-year-old boy in Minnesota this week after he came home from school. Federal agents took the child, Liam Conejo Ramos, from his family's driveway.

Former acting ICE director John Sandweg told PBS News' Liz Landers on Thursday that while it’s hard to fully grasp what the right call is for federal agents in that situation, he worries that incidents such as this affect the agency’s reputation and ultimately its “ability to do its job.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that as ICE tried to arrest Liam's father for being in the U.S. illegally, he fled on foot and left the child. The spokesperson said an ICE officer remained with the child while his father was apprehended, and the father told agents he wanted the child to remain with him. The child was eventually transported, along with his father, to a detention facility in Texas.

But school officials in Minnesota said the child was "essentially" used as bait after officers told him to knock on the door of his home to see if others were inside. They also said Liam's family has an active asylum case.Sandweg, who served as ICE's acting director during the Obama administration, said the child's detention makes it hard for the agency to claim it's promoting public safety.

"The Obama administration was heavily criticized for its immigration enforcement record," Sandweg said. "We deported hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens, and we did it without any of the scenes you're seeing today.”

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