I think it was the blue bunny hat that made that photo so gutting.
If you saw it, you probably noticed details like the white floppy ears and hanging tassels with pompoms that look like bunny paws. If you are the parent of a 5-year-old, as I am, you know that the hat’s tassels are not purely decorative. You know that squeezing the pompoms will fill the bunny ears with air and make them stand upright — a secret trick designed to delight a wearer whose middle name means “rabbit” in Spanish.
I am speaking, of course, about last week’s shocking photo of ICE agents detaining five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Minnesota shortly after he returned from preschool. Reports that Liam and his father were whisked off to immigration detention in Texas reveal a fact that may startle you: The U.S. immigration system is one of the only places where we purposefully incarcerate innocent children and babies.
Family detention is immoral and should not be used to enforce immigration laws.
During the first Trump administration, I spent two weeks working with asylum seekers inside one of these “baby jails,” and the contrasts were as jarring as that photo of Liam. The South Texas Family Residential Center is surrounded by high fences, but also has a playground and school facilities inside. The drab walls of the facility were offset by detainees in colorful matching sweats and white tennis shoes. Inside small meeting rooms, children with runny noses played quietly in the corner as their mothers recounted violent, traumatic experiences in the hopes of meeting an elusive asylum standard called “credible fear” — a legal threshold families must meet to avoid deportation.
Presidents from both parties have jailed babies and children, but the Trump administration dramatically expanded the scale and routine use of family detention as part of its immigration crackdown. Family detention is immoral and should not be used to enforce immigration laws. Likewise, school-age children, including the four students reportedly detained in Liam’s district, should not be whisked away by masked government agents. I cannot comprehend needing to write such words in the United States in 2026, but here we are.
This past week, Utah lawmakers began the 2026 legislative session and will be considering proposed laws related to public education and immigration enforcement. To a greater or lesser degree, members of Utah’s GOP supermajority will also be considering how to help their communities and live their values at a time when the moderate “Utah Immigration Compact” way of earlier eras feels increasingly distant. So I’ll be blunt: Immigration enforcement policies that harm children don’t just violate moral norms — they lose elections.
Take it from someone who grew up in Republican California during the Prop 187 initiative of 1994 that sought to deny access to services like health care and public education to undocumented children. That ballot measure ultimately cost Republicans the state, a point underscored on its 25th anniversary, when California’s Latino Legislative Caucus released a “Thank You Pete Wilson” video highlighting the former GOP governor’s role in mobilizing Latino voters.
More recently, a similar story has played out in Arizona, when 2010’s SB 1070, another controversial immigration law, helped turn a once reliably red state purple and contributed to Democratic wins in recent Senate and presidential races. California and Arizona show what happens when immigration enforcement crosses a moral line involving children: short-term political gains, followed by long-term electoral backlash that reshapes party coalitions for a generation.
Utah voters care about their neighbors and don’t want to see school kids arrested by masked government agents. Our state leads the country in volunteerism as we serve alongside fellow citizens from across the political spectrum in churches, schools and community groups. We have not forgotten that our state was settled by ancestors fleeing religious and political persecution. I believe that the unique social and historical factors that make Utah more moderate than other red states are actually a tremendous advantage for the GOP. Republican lawmakers can either continue to benefit from this moderation or squander it through knee-jerk polarization and a win-at-all-costs approach to governance.
The outrage over the arrest of Liam Conejo Ramos is a political warning for Utah lawmakers. As an educator, parent and Utahn who loves my neighbors and this state, I hope they are willing to listen.