Judge orders ICE to release detained 5-year-old, calling the case a failure of humanity

The ruling frees Liam Conejos Ramos and his father from a Texas detention center and sharply criticizes immigration practices that the judge said needlessly traumatize children

A federal judge has ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from immigration detention after their sudden removal from a suburban Minneapolis driveway ignited national outrage and renewed scrutiny of how immigration enforcement impacts children.

According to CNN, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered the release of Liam Conejos Ramos and his father from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where the pair had been held for more than a week. The ruling directs the government to free both “as soon as practicable” and no later than Tuesday, even as their immigration case continues through the courts.

Liam, a preschooler from the Minneapolis area, was taken by immigration agents from his home and transported more than 1,300 miles to a Texas detention facility designed to hold families. The judge’s order, first reported by the San Antonio Express-News, sharply criticized the circumstances surrounding the child’s detention and the broader enforcement approach that led to it.

In a blistering opinion that read at times like a civics lecture, Biery accused the government of acting with disregard for foundational American principles. He admonished what he described as “the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence,” invoking Thomas Jefferson’s warnings against authoritarian rule and suggesting that the country is now “hearing echoes of that history.”

The case, Biery wrote, grew out of “the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas,” a system he said appeared willing to traumatize children in service of enforcement goals. While acknowledging that Liam and his father could ultimately face deportation, the judge stressed that such outcomes should occur through “a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”

Biery concluded his opinion by quoting Benjamin Franklin’s famous words from the 1787 Constitutional Convention: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Public anger over Liam’s detention intensified after an image circulated showing an immigration agent holding the boy’s Spider-Man backpack while the child stood nearby wearing a cartoon bunny hat. The photo became a symbol of mounting concern over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and its effects on families.

Those concerns are not isolated. Columbia Heights Public Schools said Liam is the fourth child from the district to be taken by immigration agents within a span of two weeks. Last weekend, a toddler was returned to her mother in Minneapolis after being detained and sent to Texas with her father under similar circumstances.

Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, who visited Liam and his father at the detention facility earlier this week, said the child appeared “very depressed.” Castro said Liam’s father told him the boy had not been eating well, had been sleeping excessively, and frequently asked about his mother and classmates.

How Liam ended up in ICE custody remains disputed. Family members and school officials have accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of using the child as leverage to draw out his parents, an allegation the agency denies. School district superintendent Zena Stenvik said agents directed Liam to knock on his own front door to see if any other adults were inside. A school board chair who witnessed the scene described frantic pleas from Liam’s father not to open the door.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, offered a sharply different account. In public statements, the Department of Homeland Security said Liam’s father fled during the attempted arrest and that the child’s mother refused to take custody despite multiple opportunities. DHS insisted agents followed protocol and acted in accordance with the father’s wishes to keep the child with him.

An ICE official also rejected claims that a child was used as bait, saying officers attempted to reunite Liam with family members and even took him to McDonald’s for a meal.

Liam’s family, originally from Ecuador, entered the U.S. legally in December 2024 and applied for asylum, according to their attorney. His father has no known criminal record in either Minnesota or Ecuador, despite DHS referring to him as being in the country illegally.

For advocates and critics alike, the judge’s ruling underscores a broader question now confronting the nation. In the race to enforce immigration laws, what responsibility does the government bear to protect children caught in the middle?