‘Disturbing,’ ‘Haunting’; Friday Shows Blast ICE Over Incident With Five-Year-Old

As our Jorge Bonilla pointedly wrote when analyzing the Thursday night time community newscasts, the liberal, elite media have proven — by their new curiosity on this tall story a few five-year-old Minneapolis boy getting used as “bait” by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to lure again his day — a concentrated, new, and sudden concern for the plight of kids caught up within the unlawful immigration fiasco wrought during the last 4 years.

Friday’s lead morning and night community newscasts had been no completely different, expressing horror over the “disturbing,” “haunting,” “highly effective,” and “upsetting” pictures and narrative (concocted by a slew of AWFLs that appear to run the varsity district the kid was attending). By the night, they zoomed out to additionally have fun the anti-ICE mobs shutting down the world airport and, in a single case, suck as much as far-left Legal professional Normal Keith Ellison (D).

First up, we now have CBS Mornings with co-host Gayle King channeling all of the sympathy factors of these not totally engaged on what appears to have occurred:

Correspondent Nicole Sganga picked it up from there:

Friday’s ‘CBS Mornings’, utilizing a staff of AWFLs that run the varsity district which the five-year-old attended — totally leans into the feelings and narrative that ICE grabbed the child and cruelly denied the varsity board chair the possibility to take the kid for herself pic.twitter.com/q0AHARxgtl

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 23, 2026

“We spoke with college officers who had been there saying that they consoled the boy’s sobbing mom after ICE brokers took her husband and son away from her…Greater than half a dozen federal brokers had been seen on cellphone video Tuesday surrounding this five-year-old boy carrying a bunny hat and a Spiderman backpack. Liam Ramos was taken into custody, alongside together with his dad, Ecuadorian asylum seeker Andriana Alexander Conejo Arias,” Sganga defined.

Amid a slew of soundbites from the AWFLs on the college district (whose story in regards to the youngster having been “bait” now totally debunked even The Washington Publish issued a correction), Sganga threw in just a few traces from the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) (click on “develop”):

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, MINNESOTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT ZENA STENVIK: Over the previous couple of weeks, ICE brokers have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our faculties, following our buses, coming into our parking tons a number of occasions and taking our children.

SGANGA: In an announcement, the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned “ICE didn’t goal…a toddler,” including he was “deserted” by the daddy who “fled on foot” after officers tried to arrest him and additional added that Conejo Arias needed the kid to stay with him as soon as he was detained. DHS additionally mentioned tried to reunite the kid together with his mom, however she refused to take custody. However in response to college board chair Mary Granlund, that’s not the way it occurred. She says she noticed it herself.

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS PUBLIC SCHOOLS BOARD CHAIR MARY GRANLUND: Anyone else noticed me and mentioned to the brokers, college is right here, the varsity is right here. They will take him. And I mentioned, sure, I’m right here. I’m right here. I may help with that.

SGANGA [TO GRANLUND]: You supplied to take him, and also you noticed ICE brokers drive away with the five-year-old boy?

GRANLUND: Sure.

Two soundbites from Vice President JD Vance later (although one was Sganga arguing the federal authorities are those who must be “turning down the temperature”), she concluded by parroting “the household’s lawyer” that the boy and his dad “entered the nation in 2024 at a Brownsville border crossing down in Texas” and “submitted an asylum declare by what’s known as the CBP1 app and had been following by on steps all through the immigration course of.”

Unsurprisingly, DHS says they haven’t any file of the daddy really doing the latter steps.

Friday’s CBS Night Information took issues to a different degree. The set-up even included the debunked “bait” narrative:

Sganga opened by pointing to the “1000’s” who “braved subfreezing temperatures within the Twin Cities to protest ICE, with companies declaring Black-Out Friday.”

Shifting to the kid, she aired a quick soundbite from Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino “defend[ing] ICE brokers” earlier than reairing her trade with the varsity board official and later when she not directly accused Homeland Safety of mendacity in regards to the father’s immigration standing.

The underside actually dropped out as she by no means introduced up the Somali welfare fraud and took Ellison at his phrase that the ICE surge was some imprecise “political tactic…to punish municipal leaders.”

And, when Ellison mentioned he can state for a truth the federal authorities gained’t examine the ICE agent within the Renee Good case, Sganga expressed horror: “I believe that’s going to make lots of people within the state and on this nation indignant.”

Shifting to Good Morning America, they had been nonetheless operating full-speed aboard the disinformation practice:

Correspondent Matt Rivers claimed:

A preschool boy standing within the Minnesota chilly, swept up within the ICE crackdown. Faculties officers say five-year-old Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, had simply pulled into their suburban Minneapolis driveway Tuesday when brokers took that father into custody. The varsity then saying an agent “basically used the 5 12 months previous as bait,” directing him to see if anybody else was dwelling earlier than taking the boy away. Witnesses say a number of individuals, together with the boy’s mom, supplied to take him.

Rivers would just for ICE’s place that mentioned “DHS [has been] telling completely different story saying, ‘ICE didn’t goal a toddler,’ claiming Liam’s father is undocumented immigrant who ‘fled on foot – abandoning’ his son within the driveway.”

As soon as a brief soundbite ran of Vance questioning “what are” ICE brokers “purported to do” in that state of affairs, Rivers went again to the opposite facet of the coin (click on “develop”):

RIVERS: The lawyer says father and son entered the U.S. legally.

MARK PROKOSCH: Liam and his dad did enter at port of entry to hunt asylum they usually have shared their data with the federal government they usually had been following the method.

RIVERS: Now, the varsity district says 4 college students have not too long ago been detained. We now know that Liam and his father are each being held collectively at a processing facility outdoors of San Antonio. 

Rivers caught round for Friday’s World Information Tonight and, on the constructive facet, he will need to have thought it was time to inform viewers about Thursday morning’s three arrests within the anti-ICE mob’s Sunday assault on a church:

PATHETIC: After nothing on both of ABC’s main newscasts Thursday (AM or PM) and Friday morning, Friday’s ‘World Information Tonight’ spared 15 seconds from correspondent Matt Rivers to say three from the anti-ICE, church-storming mob are going through fees from the Justice Division pic.twitter.com/iaUCyGm5rK

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 24, 2026

In totality, nonetheless, the piece was nonetheless closely pro-mob:

NBC’s At the moment went with co-host Craig Melvin saying Vance “blam[ed] native Democratic officers and agitators for the continued tensions there amid new arrests, and the rising backlash after federal brokers detained a five-year-old boy.”

In fact not admitting the media’s function in driving this, correspondent Maggie Vespa mentioned “the highlight on the story of this preschooler…is rising quickly” and a logo of “the mayhem surrounding President Trump’s immigration crackdown.’

After a he-said, he-said between DHS and the household’s advocates, Vespa touted a part of her inquiries to Vance at a Thursday press convention about whether or not he sympathizes with those that really feel ICE’s existence within the Twin Cities “makes them really feel much less secure.”

Vespa not less than had the courtesy to spend 40 seconds on the costs towards the ringleaders of the St. Paul church storming.

Vespa’s Friday NBC Nightly Information report was a catch-all of liberal narratives, together with one to regulate within the days to return.

To see the related transcripts from January 23, click on right here (for ABC’s Good Morning America), right here (for ABC’s World Information Tonight), right here (for CBS Mornings), right here (for the CBS Night Information), right here (for NBC’s At the moment), and right here (for NBC Nightly Information).