A five-year-old boy and his father returned Minneapolis On Sunday, after being released from a Texas immigration detention center where they had been held for a week, According to US House Representative Joaquin Castro.
“Liam is home now. With his hat and his backpack. Thank you to everyone who sought freedom for Liam,” Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said in a post on X. “We will not stop until all the children and families are home.”
The Texas politician said he picked them up from the detention center and brought them back Minneapolis Commencement Sunday.
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Conejo Arias Detained on January 20 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
A viral photo of a five-year-old preschooler wearing a bunny hat and plaid coat has sparked nationwide outrage amid claims that the boy, who was arrested on his driveway, was used as bait to arrest his mother.
Saturday, A US judge ordered A five-year-old boy and his father were released from a detention centre, saying: “This case has its roots in the government’s misguided and inefficient enforcement of daily deportation quotas, despite the need for children to suffer.”
On the day of the arrest, the five-year-old boy was returning from school with his father when immigration agents pulled him from their car near their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights, according to the school district.
“This family is following US legal parameters and has an active asylum case without a deportation order,” Columbia Heights Public School District Superintendent Jena Stenwick said in a Jan. 21 statement. “I saw the legal paperwork with my own eyes. Why was a five-year-old child detained? You can’t tell me that this child would be classified as a violent offender.”
Stenwick said another adult who lived in the home was outside at the time of the encounter and begged to take custody of the child instead of taking him into custody, but officers refused.
The Department of Homeland Security refuted this claim, Posting on X A five-year-old child is “abandoned [sic] by his father and the alleged mother refused to take custody of her own child.
Amidst the release of the preschooler and his father, the school district said Sunday that they are “grateful for the outpouring of well wishes and support from people around the world.”
“Liam’s release is an important development, and we hope it will lead to positive outcomes for other families as well, including our other four students at the Dilli facility in Dilli. Texas,” a Columbia Heights Public School District spokesperson read a statement. “We want all children released from detention centers and hope for the reunification of families who have been unjustly separated.”
According to a Analysis of records Obtained through the Deportation Data Project, ICE booked nearly 3,800 minors in immigrant family detention from January to October 2025. The number of children currently in immigration detention centers remains unclear.
A five-year-old boy and his father were detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. The children were detained with their parents will eventually be transferred. The detention center, run by a private prison company called CoreCivic, is intended to be less punitive than traditional prisons. Access to school and playgrounds For children.
However, representatives are Castro and Jasmine Crockett Terrible conditions are explained When they visited the preschooler and his father last week at the detention center, they said they encountered children who were “emotionally broken because of the trauma they were going through.”
Crockett said children at the detention center told him, “We’re not in school,” but facility staff said otherwise.
Conejo Arias told Texas deputies that the child was often tired and malnourished at the detention center, which houses about 1,100 people, according to Castro.
Advocate for the family told CNN Last month, the child and his father entered the US legally, leaving Ecuador amid poor economic conditions, insecurity and unstable job conditions. The lawyer said the five-year-old boy and his father are in the legal process to seek status in the United States, pending their claims.
