None of this is “acceptable or necessary,” as one advocate said
Liam Tadeo should have no worries, only excitement about starting kindergarten, having fun at recess with his friends, and coming home to his family after a day of learning and playing. Instead, the five-year-old has become the latest face of the Trump administration’s deliberately cruel war on children.
ABDUCTED BY ICE WHILE ON THE WAY TO A SOCCER GAME
Liam and his dad, Victor Martinez Nieto, were on their way to a soccer game on August 16 when they were abducted by ICE in Austin, Texas and detained at the privately-operated prison for migrant families in Dilley, Texas. “In a video of their arrest that went viral, Liam is crying and holding on to Martinez Nieto’s hands, which are cuffed behind his back, as they are escorted into an ICE vehicle,” MS Now reported.
Scripps News reports that while Martinez Nieto had pleaded with officials to release Liam to his mom, ICE refused and continued to unnecessarily detain the child at financial benefit to CoreCivic, the private prison corporation federally contracted to operate the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. “He was supposed to start kindergarten this week, and instead he is being held in an immigration detention center,” Liam’s mom said. “He should be in school, playing soccer and at home with his family.”
Rather than allow his five-year-old child to be separated and subjected to ICE detention conditions – a federal judge just ordered increased oversight over Dilley after ruling that the camp violated basic standards of care for kids – Martinez Nieto agonizingly agreed to leave the country together. “Children can be held in this system for months or even years at a time,” said Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, the family’s attorney. “It’s a really bad experience for children and the family is just not willing to risk Liam being held alone.”
But even after the mass deportation administration got exactly what it wanted, Liam was not allowed to say goodbye to his mom. The pair was instead abandoned 20 hours away from relatives in Mexico, with no resources to reach or contact them, MS Now said.
U.S. CITIZEN CHILDREN DEPORTED TO CHAOS AND POSSIBLE DEATH
This taxpayer-funded traumatization of children is playing out beyond the walls of Dilley’s migrant family jail and impacting U.S. citizen kids. Last week, a deportation flight to Haiti included American citizen children as young as three-years-old, the Miami Herald reported. Recall that the administration currently has a level four “Do Not Travel” alert in place for Haiti, which is “grappling with roads blocked by gangs, government buildings and schools overtaken by the displaced and a surge in violence,” the Miami Herald noted.
“The deported parents of the children condemned the move, telling the Herald that they found it ‘scandalous’ that children born in the U.S. were being sent to Haiti,” the report said. “They also condemned the Haitian government for agreeing to take them back when the government is not prepared to accept returnees. One of the children, a little boy, played with a toy as his parents reluctantly spoke.”
ICE is reportedly planning to escalate these deportation flights following the Supreme Court unjust decision giving the administration the green light to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitian contributors of their legal status. When nearly one in five Haitian Temporary Protected Status holders are parents to a U.S. citizen child, entire families could face separation or deportation to chaos, instability, and possibly even death.
“Following its mass de-legalization efforts, this administration is knowingly sending people, including children, back into danger in Haiti,” said Savi Arvey, director of policy refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First. “There is no limit to its cruelty and disregard for human life.”
TEACHER: ‘YOU CANNOT TEACH CHILDREN WHO ARE TERRIFIED’
The fallout from government-sanctioned cruelty is also manifesting in other ways, including empty desks in schools all over the country.
In New Jersey, a court filing revealed that terrified children scattered and ran when four ICE vehicles blew past a stopped school bus with flashing lights and descended on an apartment building where elementary-age children were waiting for another bus. “The students reported that they recognized the agents were ICE,” said Kristin O’Neil, superintendent of the Lindenwold School District in Camden County. “The agents were all wearing masks, hoods up, and wearing vests.”
In Maryland, the administration’s mass deportation obsession has driven Hispanic K-12 enrollment in Maryland down for the first time in years, with some Montgomery County schools losing up to 11% of Hispanic students, WTOP reports. Meanwhile, Virginia officials describe families living in hiding. In southern Minnesota, 60% of educators reported students missing from class, the Post Bulletin reports.
The number was even more stark in the Twin Cities, where a full 91% of teachers reported absences. Minneapolis, of course, was the site of two shooting killings of American citizens at the hands of mass deportation agents earlier this year. Families of both victims, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, continue to wait for accountability. “You cannot teach children who are terrified,” said Monica Byron, president of Education Minnesota. “You cannot reach students who are absent. These numbers show the violent federal crackdown on BIPOC communities in Minnesota did tremendous damage to Minnesota students and their schools.”
TARGETING THE MOST VULNERABLE AMONG US
There are zero legitimate reasons for targeting kids in this way. In fact, decades-old federal law recognizes immigrant children’s unique vulnerability and mandates special care and protections when they arrive in the U.S. without a parent or adult guardian. Instead, Donald Trump and mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller “are taking particular aim at children as part of their ethnic cleansing campaign, rushing them through the legal process and abusing their rights in detention,” as The Prospect recently noted.
Two wks after the Trump administration ended a contract with a nonprofit network of attorneys to represent unaccompanied kids, a judge ordered a 1yo to file an asylum application while he was unrepresented in immigration court.Tell Congress to act NOW to protect children ➡️ tinyurl.com/protect-kids
— Acacia Center for Justice (@acaciajustice.org) 2026-08-26T14:49:15.073541113Z
That ethnic cleansing campaign, as described by The Prospect, had already targeted another five-year-old named Liam Conejo Ramos. While he was eventually freed from Dilley after also being abducted with his dad this past January, the Minnesota boy still faces the possibility of separation from the only home he’s ever known. His family says he also continues to struggle with the trauma of his detention, noting that he’s “very different” and panics when he sees a uniformed officer. “He sees police officers, and he says, ‘It’s ICE, Mommy.’”
Liam Tadeo also deserves his chance to go to school and reach his full potential, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “This case highlights the cruelty of our immigration policies where a young child who has spent more than half of his life in the United States is unnecessarily detained with his father and deported without being able to say goodbye to his mother. None of this was acceptable or necessary.”
