Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian asylum seekers from Ecuador spent 10 days at the Dilley facility before US District Judge Fred Biery ordered their release on Saturday
A five-year-old boy and his father, who were detained during United States President Donald Trump’s immigration raids and held at a Texas detention centre, have returned to their home in Minnesota.
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian asylum seekers from Ecuador spent 10 days at the Dilley facility before US District Judge Fred Biery ordered their release on Saturday.
Texas Representative Joaquin Castro said in a social media post that he collected them from the centre on Saturday night and accompanied them back to Minnesota on Sunday.
“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Castro wrote, sharing photos of the child. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Liam and his father on January 20 as the boy was returning from preschool.
Images of the child wearing a blue bunny hat and backpack while being held by officers circulated worldwide, fuelling public outrage over the immigration crackdown, during which agents have shot and killed two US citizens.
Liam was one of four students detained by immigration officials in a Minneapolis suburb, according to the Columbia Heights Public School District.
In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE did not deliberately target Liam and that his mother declined to take him after his father was arrested. She said the father requested that Liam remain with him.
“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to pursue the arrest, detention and removal of individuals who have no legal right to remain in the country,” McLaughlin said.
Neighbours and school officials alleged that immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by asking him to knock on his family’s door so his mother would come out.
The Department of Homeland Security rejected that account, calling it an “abject lie,” and said the father fled on foot, leaving the child in a running vehicle in the driveway.
In a sharply worded ruling, Judge Biery said the case stemmed from what he described as the government’s poorly executed effort to meet daily deportation targets, even if it meant traumatising children.
He criticised what he called the government’s apparent disregard for the US Declaration of Independence and cited the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar later shared a photo of herself with Liam, his father and Castro, holding the boy’s Spider-Man backpack.
“Welcome home, Liam,” she wrote, adding two heart emojis.
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