Five-year-old boy and father detained by ICE have returned to Minnesota, says US lawmaker
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Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias sitting on the stairs back at their home after a judge ordered their release, in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, US.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, detained with his father in an immigration raid, is now home after public outrage.
- Judge Biery criticised the "ill-conceived" detention, citing the US Declaration of Independence and the Fourth Amendment.
- Congressman Castro accompanied Liam and his father home, stating, "We won't stop until all children and families are home."
AI generated
WASHINGTON - Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father have returned to their home in a Minneapolis suburb after being detained by the US immigration officers and held at a detention facility in Texas
A federal judge on Jan 31 ordered the release of Mr Adrian Conejo Arias and his son, whom immigration officers detained during a Minnesota raid. US Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, wrote in a social media post that he picked them up on the night of Jan 31 at the detention facility and escorted them back to Minnesota on Feb 1.
“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Mr Castro said. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”
A photo that went viral last month shows Liam wearing a blue bunny hat outside his house with federal agents standing nearby. He was one of four students detained by immigration officials in a Minneapolis suburb, according to the Columbia Heights Public School District.
The Ecuadorean boy and his father, who entered the United States legally as asylum applicants, had been held in a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
US District Judge Fred Biery wrote in a ruling on Jan 31 the case had its genesis in “the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
Mr Biery, appointed by former president Bill Clinton, cited the Constitution’s requirement that an arrest warrant must be based on a judge finding probable cause of a crime. The use of “administrative warrants” issued by immigration officials “is called the fox guarding the henhouse,” he wrote.
Democrats have called for reforms after large-scale enforcement operations in Minnesota and other states, and following two deadly shootings of US citizens in Minneapolis involving ICE agents. Those demands by Democratic lawmakers include mandatory body cameras, the end to roving patrols and halting the use of face masks.
Funding for the Homeland Security Department has been held up as Republicans and Democrats continue negotiating over a DHS Bill. “We’ll be talking about that in the near future,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Feb 1 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Some Republican mayors also see a need for reforms. “We’re generally encouraged that the administration seems to be exploring that pivot,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told CBS’s Face the Nation on Feb 1.
Mayors are “caught in a little bit of an impossible situation” with federal immigration enforcers’ presence in cities, Mr Holt said, adding events in Minneapolis threaten to erode the trust authorities have built over time with residents in cities.
Mr Holt spoke the day after Mr Trump ordered DHS to refrain from dealing with protesters unless federal property is threatened or local officials request help. AFP
