Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who were taken into custody by federal immigration agents in Minnesota on Jan. 20 and held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Texas, have been released following U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio’s order against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation. According to Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro (D), Ramos and his father have returned to Minnesota.
Katherine Schneider, a spokesperson for Rep. Castro, confirmed that Castro picked the two up from a detention center in Dilley, Texas, on Jan. 31 and accompanied them home to Minnesota on Feb. 1.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin clarified in a statement that ICE did not target or arrest the child, clarifying that his mother refused to claim Ramos after his father’s detainment. Arias told agents that he wanted Ramos to be alongside him, McLaughlin added.
“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin said.
The Trump administration shared that Arias entered the U.S. illegally from Ecuador in December 2024. The family’s attorney affirms that Arias has an asylum claim pending, granting the ability to stay in the U.S.
Concurrently, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review’s online court docket does not indicate any future hearings for Arias.
In his ruling, ordering the release, Judge Biery criticized the Trump administration's current actions, expressing, “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
School officials and neighboring residents claimed that federal agents used Ramos as “bait” by instructing the child to knock on his door to see if anyone else was home. DHS has responded to the claims, calling them an “abject lie,” instead stating that Arias fled on foot and left Ramos in a running vehicle in their driveway.
