5-Year-Old Boy Released from ICE Detention Center After Almost 2 Weeks, Boards Plane Home to Minneapolis with His Dad

Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old who went viral after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, is back in Minneapolis with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, after the two were released from a detention center in Texas.

The father and son flew to Minnesota on Sunday, Feb. 1, according to video obtained by ABC News. They had drawn national attention in January after ICE agents detained them in their driveway shortly after they returned home from Liam’s preschool.

“I’m happy to finally be going home,” Adrian told ABC News as he carried his sleeping son onto the plane.

Their return came one day after a Minnesota judge ordered their release from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

In the order, Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas criticized what he described as an “ill-conceived and incompetently government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” according to the document obtained by The New York Times.

Biery also rebuked what he called the “government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence.”

“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 continued, per the Times. “And the rule of law be damned.”

In the days leading up to their release, Zena Stenvik — superintendent for Liam’s Columbia Heights Public Schools District — told the Huffington Post that Liam’s health had become a growing concern while he was in detention.

“He’s been ill,” she told the outlet. “I’ve been told he has a fever. So I’m very, very concerned about his well-being in that facility.”

On Jan. 26, Liam’s mother, Erika Ramos, told MPR News that she found the situation “deeply concerning,” saying Liam appeared to be getting sick in custody.

“Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,” she said at the time. “He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat.”

Two days later, Democratic Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro visited the facility and wrote on X that, while Liam’s physical condition was not an “emergency,” the boy had been “sleeping a lot because he’s been depressed and sad.”

Castro added that many people were worried about Liam, including his school community, educators, legal team and mother.

After Liam and Conejo Arias were detained on Jan. 20, ICE agents allegedly asked the child to knock on the family’s door to see if anyone else was inside. Stenvik condemned the tactic, saying agents were “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.”

“This family is following U.S. legal parameters and has an active asylum case with no order of deportation. I have viewed the legal paperwork with my own eyes,” she said in a statement to The Guardian and Fox 9. “Why detain a 5-year-old? You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”

The family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, voiced similar concerns at the time.

“The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out,” he told The Guardian. “They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was not targeting the child and noted that ICE policy allows parents to decide whether they want to be removed with their children.

“As agents approached the driver, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias fled on foot—abandoning his child,” DHS said in a statement. “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias.”