A US judge has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from a Texas detention center by Tuesday after they were taken into custody by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Liam Conejo Ramos, an Ecuadorian boy, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on 20 January after returning from school with his father. Images of the Minnesota preschooler wearing a bunny hat and a plaid coat went viral online, sparking outrage across the country after claims that the child, who was on the driveway of his home during the arrest, was used as bait to try to arrest his mother inside the house.
US district judge Fred Biery said in his ruling on Saturday that “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 previously ruled that the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, could not be removed from the US. On Saturday’s order, Biery included a photo of the five-year-old boy and references to two lines in the Bible: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,” and: “Jesus Wept.”
Superintendent Zena Stenvik of the Columbia Heights public school district, which oversees Liam’s elementary school, said in a statement last week that three other children had been taken by immigration agents.
Stenvik said that, during Liam and his father’s arrest, “another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let them take care of the small child, but was refused”.
“Instead, the agent took the child out of the still-running vehicle, led him to the door, and directed him to knock on the door, asking to be let in, in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait,” Stenvik added.
The Department of Homeland Security disputed the claims that the child was used as bait, posting on X that, instead, “the child was ABANDONED”.
Texas representatives Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett on Wednesday visited the boy and his father at the detention center, where Liam was tired and not eating well, according to Castro.
The family’s lawyer told CNN that Liam and his family, originally from Ecuador, presented themselves to border officers in Texas in December 2024 to apply for asylum. Their claims to obtain status in the United States remained pending.
