by Frank Holmes, reporter
Trump Derangement Syndrome has led Democrats to accuse President Donald Trump of rape, serial sexual assault, and planning a military assault against the left-wing “enemy within”—but they may have just unleashed the ugliest anti-Trump smear yet.
The Trump administration is guilty of kidnapping, according to the latest leftist meme, a charge the Trump administration dismissed with just five words.
The story began when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents tried to arrest an Ecudoran man as part of their crackdown on illegal aliens in Minneapolis last Tuesday, January 20.
Word leaked that, as part of their action, they detained a five-year-old boy and had him ask his mother to open the door to their home. (She refused.)
The story was too good to check the facts, and the Democrats pounced.
ICE agents are “kidnapping five year olds,” accused Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as well as “attacking U.S. citizens,” “using them as bait to open doors,” and boldly stating “that they can violate everyday Americans’ constitutional rights by busting into their doors.”
That incident alone proves that ICE “deserves to be defunded,” said AOC.
She was far from alone in her ugly allegations.
AOC repeats the “ICE kidnapped a 5-year-old” hoax
Actual story: ICE went to arrest his illegal alien dad who decided to run away and abandon his child. An agent stayed with the kid to make sure he was safe.
Why are you lying @AOC?pic.twitter.com/RY4nBI4uyH
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 23, 2026
“ICE agents have kidnapped a 5-year-old child to use him as ‘bait’ to arrest his parents,” wrote former Treasury Secretary turned left-wing influencer Robert Reich on Substack.
“My heart aches for Liam Ramos and his family,” said Hillary Clinton, pretending to have a heart. “Enforcing the law is one thing. Terrorizing a population, using children as pawns, is another.”
“ICE just detained a 5-year-old child,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. “Don’t tell us this is about ‘the worst of the worst.’ That’s a lie.”
To be fair, no one ever said the ICE raids would target “the worst” criminal aliens; President Donald Trump got elected—overwhelmingly–promising “mass deportations” of every illegal immigrant.
The Fake News media also ran with the story, especially the far-Left network MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), which called the photo of 5-year-old Liam Ramos being detained by ICE is “”a shameful look for America,”
Local liberals repeated the slanderous story, as well. ICE agents are “taking our kids,” said liberal Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik. “Why detain a five-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
But the Trump administration jumped into action and set the record straight with just one sentence.
“THIS IS AN ABJECT LIE,” said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE.
DHS explained their aimed to arrest the boy’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias—who had been released into the U.S. interior by the Biden-Harris administration like millions of others.
“The child was ABANDONED by his father, a criminal illegal alien from Ecuador, who fled from our officers. Our officers ensured the child was SAFE,” explained DHS in a response to Clinton.
Arias, the loving father, “led on foot—abandoning his child,” DHS continued in an online response to Omar. “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias.”
Then the Trump administration revealed a detail that caused the story to blow up in Democrats’ faces in the most humiliating way.
“Our officer’s made multiple attempts to get the mother inside the house to take custody of her child. Officers even assured her that they would NOT take her into custody,” said DHS in reply to a social media post from Rep, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.
When it was all said and done, the boy’s ICE detention was a combination of the father’s abandonment, the mother’s refusal, and the father’s choice.
“The father told officers he wanted the child to remain with him,” DHS told Castro.
DHS pointed out that Democrats never complained when the Biden or Obama administrations did the same thing for a combined 12 years.
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations immigration enforcement,” DHS told Omar.
DHS didn’t even “separate the family”: They deported father and son together to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
To head off Democratic grandstanding about the detention center, Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, has already posted video showing its “state-of-the-art facilities.”
DHS didn’t stop there. It went on to shame Hillary Clinton’s record of silence over the suffering of American children.
“Does your heart also ache for the thousands of families who have lost loved ones to violent, criminal illegal alien MURDERERS? “ DHS asked Hillary Clinton. “You haven’t tweeted about those Angel Families once.”
Angel families are American citizens who have lost a family member to illegal alien criminals—like the ones Democrats are trying to stop ICE from arresting in Minneapolis…but you wouldn’t know that from Clinton, Omar, Castro, or other Democrats.
Jocelyn Nungaray, Kate Steinle, 10-year-old A.J. Wise Jr., 7-year-old Ivory Smith—the Democrats won’t say a word about the real sexual assaults or brutal murders they suffered. But they jumped with both feet on a phony story about an ICE kidnapping.
THIS IS AN ABJECT LIE.
The child was ABANDONED by his father, a criminal illegal alien from Ecuador, who fled from our officers. Our officers ensured the child was SAFE.
Does your heart also ache for the thousands of families who have lost loved ones to violent, criminal… https://t.co/OkqXunTfF7
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) January 22, 2026
Trump Derangement Syndrome is a heckuva drug.