Five-Year-Old Liam Conejo Ramos to Be Freed From Texas ICE Facility Following Judge's Order

Liam Conejo Ramos is going home. The five-year-old boy whose photograph in a bunny hat sparked outrage across America will soon walk out of the Texas detention centre where he has spent the past eleven days. On Saturday morning, US District Judge Fred Biery signed an order demanding that Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, be released from the Dilley Immigration Processing Centre by Tuesday at the latest.

Judge Biery did not mince words. He blasted the Trump administration for what he called 'ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence'. The whole case, he wrote, stems from 'the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatising children'. He took particular aim at the warrants used to detain the family, calling them 'the fox guarding the henhouse' since they were issued by the executive branch to itself rather than by an independent court, according to the Dallas Morning News.

How a Preschooler Became a National Symbol

It was 20 January, a cold Minnesota afternoon. Liam had just come home from Valley View Elementary with his dad. They pulled into their driveway in Columbia Heights, a quiet suburb outside Minneapolis. That's when ICE agents moved in. A neighbour grabbed her phone and snapped a photo. In it, little Liam stares at the camera. He's wearing a cartoon bunny hat. An agent holds his Spider-Man backpack. Within hours, the image was everywhere.

The family came to America in December 2024. They did things by the book, according to their lawyer Marc Prokosch. They used the CBP One app, booked an appointment, and showed up at the Brownsville port of entry to request asylum. 'These are not illegal aliens. They came properly,' Prokosch said. But federal officials tell a different story. They say the family's immigration parole ran out in April 2025. As far as the government is concerned, the Conejos overstayed their welcome.

Two Very Different Stories About What Happened

What actually went down in that driveway? It depends who you ask. School officials say ICE agents used Liam as bait. Superintendent Zena Stenvik claims an agent walked the boy to his front door and told him to knock, hoping someone inside would open up. School board chair Mary Granlund happened to drive past during the chaos. She said she saw Liam's father yelling at his wife not to open the door. Another adult who lived there begged agents to let them take the child. They refused.

The Department of Homeland Security calls this an 'abject lie'. Their version? The father ran. He bolted on foot and left his son sitting alone in a running car in the middle of winter. ICE says their officers looked after the boy, even took him to McDonald's. Acting director Marcos Charles insists his agency would never use a child as bait. He says agents tried again and again to hand Liam over to relatives, but they refused.

'He No Longer Wants to Eat'

After the arrest, father and son were loaded onto transport and driven 1,300 miles south to Dilley, Texas. The detention centre there holds immigrant families — mothers, fathers, and their kids — while the government decides what to do with them. Congressman Joaquin Castro visited Liam this week. What he found troubled him. The boy was 'very depressed', Castro said. He wasn't eating much. He slept constantly. He kept asking for his mum and wondering about his school friends.

Liam's mother Erika spoke to Minnesota Public Radio from back home. She's pregnant and terrified. 'Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,' she said. 'He has stomach pain, he's vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat.' Pastor Sergio Amezcua, who has been helping the family, says Erika was too scared to open the door that day. Neighbours told her not to. They worried she'd be taken too.

Origami Rabbits and Cries for Freedom

Liam isn't the only one. He's actually the fourth kid from his school district grabbed by ICE in just two weeks. His case has touched something deep in people. At the Dilley facility, dozens of detained children held their own protest on 24 January. They gathered in the courtyard and chanted 'Libertad' — freedom. Outside the gates, adult protesters showed up too. Things got tense. Texas state troopers set off smoke canisters and arrested at least two people when the crowd wouldn't leave.

Back in Minnesota, something gentler is happening. People are folding paper rabbits. Conejo means rabbit in Spanish, and Liam's bunny hat made the connection impossible to miss. Superintendent Stenvik says her inbox is flooded with messages reading simply 'yo soy conejo' — I am the rabbit. She compared it to the thousand paper cranes people folded for Sadako after Hiroshima. A small gesture. But it means something

The judge's order is clear. Liam and his father must be released under conditions no stricter than before they were locked up. Officials cannot move them to another facility while they wait. Judge Biery acknowledged the family might still face deportation someday through proper channels. But it should happen, he wrote, 'through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place'.