A federal judge on Saturday ordered the release of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old held in ICE immigration custody, and his father, Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias. The judge sharply criticized the Donald Trump administration’s detention methods and questioned the legal grounds for their arrest.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered the release of the father and son from a detention center in Dilley, Texas, by Tuesday. He stated that the case resulted from “the poorly planned and poorly executed government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
In the same order, Biery wrote: “Observing human behavior shows that for some, the desire for unchecked power and the imposition of cruelty in its pursuit knows no limits and lacks human decency. And the rule of law be damned.”
Biery also questioned the use of administrative warrants in immigration arrests. He wrote, “Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not meet the probable cause standard. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.”
The boy and his father were detained on Jan. 20 in a Minnesota suburb and then transferred more than 1,000 miles to the South Texas Family Residential Center, according to The Washington Post. Photos of the child, including ones showing him in a Spider-Man backpack and a winter hat while surrounded by officers, gained attention online and highlighted the case.
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos received a wings pin in the cockpit on his flight back to Minneapolis. https://t.co/2zvmfQVyEk pic.twitter.com/P5q7rbTPN3
— ABC News (@ABC) February 1, 2026
Accounts of the arrest differed as local officials and neighbors said federal officers used the child to get someone to open the door at the family’s home, a claim the Department of Homeland Security disputed. DHS stated that the father ran from officers and left the child in a running vehicle, insisting the officers did not target the child.
Biery ordered the pair released “as soon as practicable,” and no later than Tuesday, while the underlying immigration proceedings continue. The judge noted that the father and son might still have to leave the United States in the end, but said any such outcome should follow a more orderly process than what he described in the record before him.
After the court order, Texas Representative Joaquin Castro took the father and son back to Minnesota, and the congressman’s office confirmed they arrived home on Sunday. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on their release.
The decision came amid rising political conflict over immigration enforcement, including renewed focus on the detention of children and the tactics used during operations. The Washington Post reported that the ruling also mentioned constitutional limits on executive power and directly criticized the legality of administrative warrants.
Minnesota residents continue to protest ICE as backlash spreads around the country and internationally after two high-profile killings of American citizens. The Trump admin has made a move by sending Tom Homan to replace Greg Bovino in Minneapolis in a bid to calm down enforcement violence.
