A US judge has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from a Texas detention centre 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) on 20 January after returning from school with his father. Images of the preschooler wearing a bunny hat and a plaid coat went viral, sparking outrage after claims that the child was used as bait to try to arrest his mother.
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 traumatising children”. Biery previously ruled that the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, could not be removed from the US. In Saturday’s order, the judge included a photo of Liam and references to two Bible verses: “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 said in a statement last week that three other children had been taken by immigration agents. During Liam and his father’s arrest, she said, “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 claim, posting on X that the child was “abandoned”.
Texas representatives Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett visited Liam and his father at the detention centre, where Castro said Liam was tired and not eating well. 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 remain pending.
