A US federal judge has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father who were detained by ICE officers during a raid in Minnesota.
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were taken into custody by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in their Minneapolis driveway on 20 January, just after the child returned home from preschool that day.
A photo of Liam wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as he was surrounded by ICE officers went viral and caused outrage among protesters and the wider public.
Liam and his father were then flown more than 1,000 miles from their home in Minneapolis to a facility in Texas.
The government says Conejo Arias, an Ecuadorian national, entered the US illegally from Ecuador in December 2024, while the family’s lawyer says he has a pending asylum claim that allows him to remain in the country.
US District Judge Fred Biery, who sits in San Antonio and was appointed by former Democratic president Bill Clinton, has now ordered that Liam and his father Conejo Arias, an Ecuadorian national, be released by Tuesday.
He was critical of US president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown tactics in his ruling, saying 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”.
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ICE accused of using boy ‘as bait’
Local school officials and neighbours claimed ICE officers had used Liam as “bait” to get his parents by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer.
It has generally been understood that ICE agents cannot enter a home unless they have a warrant signed by a judge, so immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments urge people who fear being arrested not to open their doors to agents unless they are shown a warrant.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said suggestions ICE officers used the boy as bait were an “abject lie” and claimed the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
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DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said: “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias”.
She said parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or have them placed with a person of their choosing.
A protest for Conejo Arias and Liam was held outside the family detention centre they are being held at earlier this week.
Texas Representatives, Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, visited the father and son, and reported that Conejo Arias said Liam was tired and not eating well.
Liam was one of four students stopped in his district on 20 January, according to Zena Stenvik, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, who said masked and armed officers also detained two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old.
Their detainment has only added to the unrest in Minneapolis, where ICE’s crackdown has sparked mass protests.
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Tensions have deepened since the government deployed 2,000 ICE agents to the city at the start of the year, and even more since the deadly shootings by a federal officer of poet Renee Good and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse.
