Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who were detained by immigration officers in Minnesota and held at an ICE facility in Texas, have been released following a judge's order. They have returned to Minnesota, according to Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The boy and his dad, Adrian Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador, were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
Katherine Schneider, a spokesperson for the Democratic congressman, confirmed the two had arrived home. She said Castro picked them up from Dilley on Saturday night and escorted them home on Sunday to Minnesota.
In a statement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not target or arrest Liam Conejo Ramos, and that his “alleged mother” refused to take him after his father’s apprehension. His father told officers he wanted Liam to be with him, she said.
“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin said.
The government said the boy's father entered the U.S. illegally from Ecuador in December 2024. The family’s lawyer said he has an asylum claim pending that allows him to stay in the U.S.
Images of the young boy wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack and surrounded by immigration officers drew outrage about the Trump administration's crackdown in Minneapolis.
In his order granting the release, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery blasted the administration, writing, “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.”
Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as "bait" by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an "abject lie." It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
Castro wrote a letter to Liam while they were on the plane to Minnesota, in which he told the young boy he has “moved the world.”
“Your family, school and many strangers said prayers for you and offered whatever they could do to see you back home,” Castro wrote. A photo of the letter was posted on social media. “Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t your home. America became the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth because of immigrants not in spite of them.”
Photos on Castro’s social media showed Liam wearing his blue bunny hat and with a Pikachu backpack.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, welcomed the boy back to Minnesota, saying in a social media post that he “should be in school and with family — not in detention.” The senator added: “Now ICE needs to leave.”
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, also a Democrat from Minnesota, posted a photo to social media of her with Liam, his father and Castro in which she is holding Liam’s Spider-Man backpack. “Welcome home Liam,” she posted with two hearts.
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Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.