Judge orders release of 5-year-old detained by ICE in Minnesota

A federal judge on Saturday ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from immigration custody after they were detained by immigration agents in suburban Minneapolis, the judges order said. The image of Liam, wearing a Spider-Man backpack and an oversized blue winter hat while in custody, fueled outrage.

The flood of immigration enforcement officers into Minneapolis, known as Operation Metro Surge, has led to mass demonstrations and, the article says, the shooting deaths of two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents. Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas issued a brief but fiery opinion condemning "the perfidious lust for unbridled power" and "the imposition of cruelty." He included Liams photo in the three-page ruling, cited passages from the New Testament that read "let the little children come to me" and "Jesus wept," compared the crackdown to the "swarms of officers" sent by the British king, and wrote that the order was made "with a judicial finger in the constitutional dike." He ordered both to be released by Tuesday.

The boys father, Adrian Conejo Arias, was also arrested and taken to a detention center outside San Antonio. Lawyers for the family said Mr. Conejo Arias had legally entered the country under American guidelines for asylum, while the Department of Homeland Security charged he had entered illegally in December 2024.

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