A Texas federal judge has snapped the politically toxic saga of 5‑year‑old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release them from a Texas family detention center by Tuesday — a stunning rebuke to bureaucracy that tormented a preschooler and lit up the national outrage machine.
The ruling, delivered Saturday by U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio, does more than free a kid from cages; it slams the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy as “ill‑conceived and incompetently‑implemented” — specifically calling out a system that detains children while pursuing deportations.
The uproar over this case started when ICE agents descended on Liam and his father in their Minneapolis suburb driveway on Jan. 20 as the boy was returning home from preschool. Photos of Liam — clutching a Spider‑Man backpack and wearing a blue bunny hat — became a flashpoint in fierce debates over children being swept up in enforcement operations.
Local school officials and community leaders accused ICE of using Liam “as bait” to lure other adults at the house, a claim the Department of Homeland Security disputes, saying the father “fled on foot,” supposedly leaving his son behind.
Whatever the legal arguments, the fact that a five‑year‑old ended up in the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, more than 1,300 miles from home for over a week, fueled protests and political pressure nationwide.
By the time the case reached Biery’s courtroom, it had become about far more than a single family’s fate. Lawmakers, advocates and public health observers had highlighted how Liam wasn’t just detained — he was reportedly miserable and ill. Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro said the boy was “very depressed,” sleeping a lot and missing his mom and classmates.
Still, the ruling doesn’t vindicate every complaint. Biery’s order simply requires release while their immigration proceedings continue — not an outright dismissal of the government’s broader case. The judge’s language, though, was sharp. His decision blasted the system’s reliance on administrative warrants and criticized enforcement that can “traumatize children.”
The broader context makes this even more combustible. Community leaders say Liam wasn’t the only child from Columbia Heights public schools swept up in the wave of enforcement actions. Multiple other students are reportedly still in custody, igniting further concern over how immigration policies are being executed on the ground.
Critics argue this case is a damning snapshot of enforcement overreach — a five‑year‑old detained, shipped across the country, and only freed because a judge finally recognized how out of touch the system has become.
