Minneapolis, Minnesota - Thousands braved icy conditions on Friday to protest the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, and businesses closed their doors amid anger over the detention of a five-year-old migrant boy.

Dozens of eateries, attractions and other businesses shuttered as part of a day of coordinated action to defy the weeks-long federal immigration operation playing out in the midwestern state of Minnesota.

Images of an apparently terrified pre-schooler, Liam Conejo Ramos, being held by immigration officers who were seeking to arrest the boy's father has rekindled public outrage at the federal crackdown during which an agent shot dead a US citizen.

The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Ramos was a preschool student, said the child and his Ecuadoran father, Adrian Conejo Arias – both asylum seekers – were taken from their driveway as they arrived home on Tuesday.

Ramos was then used as "bait" by immigration officers to knock on the door of his home to draw out those inside, superintendent Zena Stenvik added.

Thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been deployed to the Democratic-led city, as President Donald Trump presses his campaign to deport undocumented immigrants across the country.

On a visit to Minneapolis on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance confirmed Ramos was among those detained, but argued that agents were protecting him after his father "ran" from officers.

"What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?" he said.

The UN human rights chief Volker Turk called on US authorities to end the "dehumanizing portrayal and harmful treatment of migrants and refugees."

Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro, whose Texas constituency includes a San Antonio ICE detention center to which it was thought Ramos was taken, said he was seeking updates on his welfare and whereabouts.