Where is the outrage over five-year-old Liam Ramos’s detention? | Francine Prose

Do the people imprisoning these kids like Liam Ramos have no children of their own? Do they have no decency, compassion or basic humanity?

Liam Conejo Ramos. We have all seen his picture, or by now we all should have seen the image of the adorable five-year-old in his bright blue hat, its floppy bunny ears so appropriate for a child whose middle name means rabbit." In the photo, he is wearing his Spider-Man backpack, which, like so many kids his age, he loves and is very proud of. And we know - or we should know - what happened to him.

On January 20, 2026, the pre-K student was seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on his way home from school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. His family, which had emigrated from Ecuador in 2024, had applied for political asylum. No order of deportation had been issued against them, nor had any of them -obviously, not little Liam- been accused of a crime.

Francine Prose is a former president of the PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences