Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy detained in Minnesota along with his dad — and then sent to Texas — arrived back in Minnesota on Sunday after a judge ordered their release.
Democratic Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, one of the officials who had pressed for the father and his young son’s release, picked them up Saturday night from the detention center in Dilley, Texas, and flew back with them Sunday morning, spokesperson Katherine Schneider told The Associated Press.
“Liam is now home,” Castro posted on social media Sunday. “With his hat and his backpack.”
The car was still running when Liam and his dad, Adrian Conejo Arias, were snatched Jan. 20 as they arrived home from the little boy’s preschool. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers reportedly told the child to knock on his door to draw out anyone inside, “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik told reporters at the time.
But the Department of Homeland Security said that was an “abject lie,” alleging the father had bolted and left Liam in the running vehicle. Still, the image of the tot, sporting a bunny hat and toting a Spiderman backpack, being swarmed by ICE agents in his driveway struck a nerve nationwide. The agency’s denial also rang hollow in the wake of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good as she tried to drive away from ICE agents banging on the door of her SUV.
When U.S. Democratic Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett visited the center and learned that Liam was lethargic, not eating, and calling for his mother, pressure mounted for the release of the dad and little boy. Conejo Arias and his family had arrived from Ecuador in 2024, have an active asylum case, and are not under a removal order, their attorney has said. The U.S. government said they arrived illegally.
In ordering the pair’s return, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery quoted both the Declaration of Independence and the Bible, implying the Trump administration’s actions are exactly the type that inspired the 1776 declaration.
“Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,” Biery wrote, according to The Washington Post. “And the rule of law be damned.”
Biery underscored his ruling with a photo of Liam captioned with the Bible lines, “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.”
With News Wire Services
