Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father have returned to their home in Minnesota after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The announcement was made on Sunday by Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro, who said Liam (along with his bunny hat and backpack) and his father Adrian Alexander were released from the Dilley detention center in Texas.
Castro also shared that he had personally gone to accompany Liam and his father up from the back to Minnesota.
On X, Castro wrote: “Liam and his dad were released last night from the Dilley detention center. They should never have been there in the first place. Thanks to your voices, they are now free.”
Sharing an update as well, Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar welcomed Liam and his father at the airport when they returned back to Minneapolis.
“I’m so glad that he is going to be back with his whole family. His mom was on FaceTime just saying, ‘I love you. I love you, my son, I love you, my love,’ which was so amazing to hear as a mother, knowing how painful it is to be separated from your children,” Omar said.
“Liam should have never been taken from his community,” she added, before thanking Representative Castro for traveling with Liam and his father, to get them home safely.
A photo of Liam in his bunny-shaped hat and Spider-Man backpack, getting taken by ICE agents in the driveway of his Minneapolis home, went viral last week. It was one of a series of moments that have drawn intense criticism over the extreme tactics of ICE agents, as part of the orders of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
In the past week, the detainment of Liam and his father has caused mass national outcry, including protests that were held outside the Texas detention facility where they were being held.
Over the weekend, US District Judge Fred Biery ordered the pair’s release, condemning ICE’s actions to detain them as a “perfidious lust for unbridled power”, adding that “the imposition of cruelty” in ICE’s “quest” knows “no bounds and is “bereft of human decency”. Biery noted that the US immigration system needs to move forward in a more humane way.
In the case of Liam and his father, the Department of Homeland Security has said the pair entered the US illegally, while a lawyer for the family says they were following proper protocols to seek asylum.
March Prokosch, the family’s lawyer, said Liam and his father entered the US from Ecuador in 2024 at a port of entry to seek asylum and presented themselves to Customs and Border Protection, noting the family “did everything right”.
“This family was not eluding ICE in any way. They were following all the established protocols pursuing their claim for asylum, showing up for their court hearings and pose no safety, no flight risk, and never should have been detained,” Prokosch said.