Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, who was detained by ICE agents in Minneapolis, has returned home with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias. The two were released from a Texas detention center after the child’s mother, Erica Ramos, spoke out about his deteriorating health.
Liam Ramos returns home after spending days in a Texas detention center (X/Kamala Harris)The father and son flew to Minnesota on Sunday. In a video obtained by ABC News, Adrian is seen carrying Liam in his arms.
“I’m glad to go home at last,” said the father. Now, a video of Liam receiving a sweet gift on the flight, a wing pin in the cockpit, has surfaced on social media.
Why Liam Conejo Ramos was allowed to leave the Texas facilityThe release comes a day after a Minnesota judge ordered the release of the two from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Judge Fred Beery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas noted that ‘the government’s pursuit of daily deportation quotas is unconscionable and inefficient, apparently even if it requires emotional trauma to children’.
He further criticized the government for its “ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence”.
“Observation of human behavior confirms that for some of us, the delusional lust for unbridled power and its pursuit of imposing cruelty knows no bounds and is devoid of human decency,” added the judge.
Liam Ramos was illLiam’s Columbia Heights Public School District Superintendent Jenna Stenwick and his mother spoke about the five-year-old’s health issues.
“He was sick,” Stanwyck told The Huffington Post. “I’m told he has a fever. So I’m very, very concerned about his well-being at that facility.”
Erica Ramos told MPR News that the situation is ‘deeply troubling’.
“Liam is getting sick because the food they eat is not good quality,” she explained. “He has a stomach ache, he’s vomiting, he has a fever and he doesn’t want to eat anymore.”
Democratic Texas Representative Joaquin Castro, who visited the detention center, said Liam’s condition was ‘not critical’ and the child was ‘frustrated and sad’.
“The whole country is worried about him,” he added on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Just went to Dilly Detention Center with Liam and his dad. I demanded his release and told him how much his family, his school and our country love him and are praying for him.”
“This family is following US legal parameters and has an active asylum case without a deportation order. I have seen the legal documents with my own eyes. Why is a 5-year-old being detained? You cannot tell me that this child would be classified as a violent criminal,” Stanvik said in a statement to The Guardian.
“The family did what they were supposed to do by law. They didn’t come here illegally. They’re not criminals,” said the family’s attorney, Mark Prokosch.
