ABC News has drawn sharp criticism for its January 22, 2026, World News Tonight segment on the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, by ICE agents in Minnesota. The report framed the incident as part of a harsh “immigration crackdown,” highlighting emotional claims from school officials that agents used the child as “bait” to apprehend the father, an Ecuadorian national illegally in the U.S. and released under prior Biden-era policies.
Critics blasted the piece for discrediting ICE while casting the illegal immigrant father as a sympathetic figure. The network emphasized the family’s pending asylum claim and lack of final deportation order, amplifying local outrage and quotes portraying agents as aggressive. Yet it downplayed or buried ICE’s account: the father fled on foot, abandoning his son in the driveway after preschool pickup, forcing agents to secure the child’s safety before pursuing him. DHS explicitly stated, “ICE did NOT target a child. The child was ABANDONED.”
This selective framing fits a pattern conservatives decry as Soros-influenced propaganda. Once the gold standard of evening news credibility, ABC—under Disney ownership—has morphed into tabloid-style advocacy, prioritizing tear-jerking narratives over facts. George Soros’s Open Society Foundations have poured tens of millions into media ecosystems promoting open borders and progressive causes, indirectly shaping coverage at outlets like ABC through funded journalism initiatives and aligned reporters.
Broadcast bias trackers, including Fox News analyses, accuse networks of relentlessly villainizing ICE and Trump-era enforcement while sanitizing illegal immigration. In this case, ABC’s report echoed activist talking points, ignoring the father’s evasion and the broader context of targeted operations against criminal aliens. Viewers on X called it “ridiculous propaganda,” accusing the network of turning law enforcement into villains to push an anti-enforcement agenda.
As immigration tensions rise under the Trump administration, ABC’s coverage risks eroding public trust further. What was once “the word” has become just another biased megaphone in a polarized media war.
