Judge orders US to release 5-year-old boy, father detained by ICE in Minnesota
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A judge on Saturday ordered the United States to release a five-year-old boy and his father from a Texas facility where they were taken after being detained in the Minneapolis area last month.
Photos of Liam Conejo Ramos wearing a bunny hat and Spiderman backpack while surrounded by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials sparked an outcry about the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants in Minnesota. It also led to a protest at a family detention center and a visit by two Texas Democratic members of Congress.
US District Judge Fred Biery, who was appointed by the former Democratic President, Bill Clinton, said in his decision that “the case has its origins in the government’s ill-conceived and ill-conceived pursuit of daily quotas of deportation, apparently even if it means torturing children.”
The same judge had previously ruled that the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, could not be removed from the US, at least not yet.
In his order on Saturday, Biery said: “It is also clear that the government has no knowledge of the American historical document called the Declaration of Independence,” suggesting that the actions of the Trump administration are similar to those that author and future president Thomas Jefferson listed as grievances against England.
In his judgment, Biery included a picture of Liam Conejo Ramos and a reference to two lines in the Bible: “Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me, do not forbid them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such,'” and “Jesus Wept.”
Stephen Miller, White House chief of staff for policy, said the goal is to detain 3,000 immigrants a day. That is the number that the judge seemed to describe as “quota.”
Spokesmen for the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Neighbors and school officials say federal immigration officials in Minnesota used the student as a “deterrent” by telling him to knock on his door so his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security called that description of events a “disgusting lie.” The father said and ran away on foot, leaving the boy in the car running in their direction.
During the visit of Jan. 28 and Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, the boy slept in the arms of his father, who said Liam was always tired and not eating well in the community of about 1,100 people, according to Castro.
Detained families report poor conditions such as worms in food, struggle for clean water and poor treatment at the facility since it opened last year. In December, a report filed by ICE acknowledged that they detained nearly 400 children for longer than the recommended 20-day limit.
