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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has filed an expedited request to terminate the asylum claims of a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his family, after the boy’s arrest by federal agents last month made international headlines.
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday. Lawyers for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos — who was abducted from his Minneapolis home along with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, and sent to a Texas prison last month — are asking the court to delay the government’s request, noting that it is highly unusual and likely an act of retribution by the Trump administration against the family.
“It’s really frustrating as an attorney, because they keep throwing new obstacles in our way,” the family’s lawyer Danielle Molliver said. “There’s absolutely no reason that this should be expedited. It’s not very common.”
Molliver indicated that she believed the judicial motion was a “retaliatory” action from the administration, something the White House has previously been accused of in other high-profile immigration cases.
DHS’s request to expedite and cancel the family’s asylum claims came on Wednesday. If successful, the family — none of whom have broken any rules during their pending asylum period — could be deported, though it’s unclear where they may be deported to.
Liam and his father were detained on January 20 outside their home in Minneapolis, shortly after Liam had ended his day at preschool. The family and their neighbors allege that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents used Liam as “bait” that day to try to lure other family members out of the home.
Images of Liam near an agent’s vehicle, looking sad and wearing a blue bunny hat, soon went viral online, depicting the cruelty of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
After abducting the father and son from their home, agents transported the two to a family immigration jail in Texas, where they were subjected to squalid conditions. One immigration lawyer familiar with the facility has described it as being a “horrible, horrible place,” with “putrid” drinking water and food containing “bugs,” dirt, and other contaminants. That lawyer also described guards in the facility as being “just as tough” as those at immigration jails for adults.
While in prison, Liam fell ill due to the dangerous conditions.
“Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,” the boy’s mother told Minnesota Public Radio last month. “He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever, and he no longer wants to eat.”
After a judge ordered both father and son to be released, Adrian and Liam flew back to Minneapolis to be reunited with their family. While happy to be back home, the ordeal has left Liam traumatized, Adrian explained in an interview, adding that the 5-year-old has been waking up in the middle of the night crying, worried that his family is being separated all over again.
“He hasn’t been the same since this all happened. He calls me when he wakes up and says, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ so I have to go to him,” Adrian said.
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