A Problem We All Live With

A little boy used as bait reminds us of our troubled past

Jan 24, 2026

Norman Rockwell’s iconic 1964 painting, “A Problem We All Live With,” depicts Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African-American girl, being escorted by U.S. marshals to an all-white school during the desegregation crisis in New Orleans.

Because of threats of violence against her, Ruby is escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals. The painting is framed so that the marshals’ heads are cropped at the shoulders, making Bridges the only person fully visible. On the wall behind her are written the racial slur “ni**er” and the letters “KKK (far upper left),” with a smashed and splattered tomato thrown against the wall.

The white protesters are not visible, as the viewer is looking at the scene from their point of view.

May be a black-and-white image of 4 people and crowd — New Orleans residents scream at Ruby Bridges as she is being escorted to school November 14, 1960

More than its title, “A Problem We All Live With,” it was a national shame that we all endured. And here we are again.

5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was grabbed by ICE last week while walking home from school. Columbia Heights Public Schools district officials accused ICE officers of using the 5-year-old “as bait” to get his parents to open their door so that his father could be taken into custody.

5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in ICE custody, January 20, 2026

“Why detain a 5-year-old?” Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public Schools district, located just north of Minneapolis, said at a news conference. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”

Neither little Liam nor his father is a violent criminal of the sort ICE has falsely claimed it targets. They are members of a family of immigrants who have been following the legal process of seeking asylum.

Hence, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, recently detained by ICE agents, was added to an image of Norman Rockwell’s famous painting to make a powerful point:

We are all living with it again

Knocking down doors like the Gestapo

A recently revealed memo shows that ICE agents are now claiming similar powers in blatant violation and disregard of our Fourth Amendment rights, which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Hitler’s Gestapo knocked down doors, entered homes without warrants, arrested political opponents and dissenters, a strategy of intimidation, violence, and terror to suppress resistance and maintain control during the Nazi regime.

ICE’s leader, Greg Bovino, a small man with an oversized ego, is given to sporting a coat resembling those worn by Nazi leaders.

German media commentators have dubbed it a “Fascist aesthetic,” a stark reminder of an evil past once again rearing its ugly head.

“It was not Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, or whatever the others were called, who had me dragged away and beaten. No, it was the cobbler, the neighbor, the old man, the milkman, the postman, those without form suddenly given armbands and a cap on their heads and then they were the master race.” ~ Karl Stojka, Auschwitz Survivor

Thousands rally against ICE in Minneapolis amid below-zero temperatures — Thousands rally against ICE in Minneapolis in subzero temps, Jan 24, 2026

Marching for Truth and Freedom

Yesterday, Thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets to protest ICE, calling it a "Day of Truth and Freedom,” as the 3,000 agents who have been deployed to Minnesota continue arrests, detentions, and forced entries into homes across the state.

Robert Kagan wrote in a recent essay on the effects of Trump’s foreign policy in The Atlantic: “Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post-Cold War world like paradise.”