White House: Five-year-old boy detained posed 'security risk'

The White House has said a five-year-old boy handcuffed and detained for more than four hours at a US airport posed a "security risk".

Footage taken ABC7 yesterday showed the boy's distraught mother embracing the child at Dulles International Airport in Virginia after she had been forced to wait for him at an immigration checkpoint.

US media reported the child had arrived from Iran to meet his mother.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted the President Trump's controversial ban would not be manipulated based on a person's age because they could still pose a threat.

"To assume that just because of someone’s age and gender that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong," he said.

The boy's mother could be heard singing "happy birthday" to him as she held him at the airport.

She declined to talk to media.

The little boy is just one of thousands of people who have been affected by the contentious border restrictions enacted by President Trump during his second week in office.