Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old who ICE agents detained in Minneapolis, has returned home with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias. The two were released from a detention center in Texas after the child's mother, Erika Ramos, spoke about his deteriorating health.
The father-son duo boarded a plane to Minnesota on Sunday. In a video obtained by ABC News, Adrian could be seen carrying Liam in his arms.
"I'm happy to finally be going home," the father said. Now, a video of Liam receiving a sweet gift on the flight, a wings pin in the cockpit, has surfaced on social media.
Why Liam Conejo Ramos was allowed to leave the Texas facility
The release comes a day after a Minnesota judge ruled that the two should be released from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas pointed out that ‘ill-conceived and incompetent government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children’.
{{/usCountry}}The release comes a day after a Minnesota judge ruled that the two should be released from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas pointed out that ‘ill-conceived and incompetent government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children’.
{{/usCountry}}He further slammed the government for its “ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence.”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," the judge added.
Liam Ramos was sick
The superintendent for Liam’s Columbia Heights Public Schools District, Zena Stenvik, and his mother had spoken about the five-year-old's health issues.
“He’s been ill,” Stenvik told the Huffington Post. “I’ve been told he has a fever. So I’m very, very concerned about his well-being in that facility.”
Erika Ramos told MPR News that the situation is ‘deeply concerning’.
“Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,” she explained. “He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat.”
Democratic Texas Rep Joaquin Castro, who visited the detention center, said that Liam's condition was not an ‘emergency’ and the child is ‘depressed and sad’.
“The whole country's been worried about him,” he added on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Just visited with Liam and his father at Dilley detention center. I demanded his release and told him how much his family, his school, and our country loves him and is praying for him.”
"This family is following US legal parameters and has an active asylum case with no order of deportation. I have viewed the legal paperwork with my own eyes. Why detain a 5-year-old? You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Stenvik said in a statement to The Guardian.
“The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out. They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals,” the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, stated.