Judge Orders Release Of 5-Year-Old Liam Conejo Ramos From ICE Detention

A federal judge in San Antonio has ordered the release of Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, and his father from an ICE detention center in Texas after they were taken into custody in a Minneapolis suburb last week.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered Saturday morning that both the preschooler and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, be released by Tuesday, the San-Antonio Express News reported. Meanwhile, their immigration cases will proceed through the courts.

“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” Biery said in his ruling, per the Associated Press.

Liam was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on his way home from school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, on Jan. 20. An image of the boy clad in a blue bunny hat with long tassels, staring straight ahead as an adult’s hand grips his Spider-man backpack, went viral, sparking national outrage over his detention.

School officials alleged Liam’s father, Conejo Arias had just driven him home when federal agents grabbed the boy in his driveway and tried to use him as “bait” to lure other adults out of the house.

The Department of Homeland Security countered that Liam’s father, who was also detained, had “fled on foot” and abandoned his son. The department also stated that his mother “refused to take custody” of Liam even though officers “assured her” they would not take her into federal custody.

DHS called what happened at Liam house a “targeted operation” to arrest Conejo Arias. Federal officials said he was in the country illegally. The family’s attorney told CNN that the family came to the United States from Ecuador to apply for asylum in December 2024 and that they are “not illegal aliens.”

Both Liam and his father were sent to Texas, ultimately ending up at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. The superintendent of Liam’s school district told HuffPost earlier this week that Liam had fallen sick at the facility.