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A federal judge has issued an order blocking the Trump administration from deporting Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old Minneapolis resident and Ecuadorian immigrant, and his father, who are both being detained in a Texas prison by immigration authorities.
Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents earlier this month, after Liam had come home from preschool. In addition to detaining Liam, ICE agents reportedly attempted to use the boy as “bait” in order to lure out more family members from his home, before neighbors intervened.
ICE then took Liam and his father into custody, despite people inside his home begging agents to leave the child with the rest of his family.
“There was ample opportunity to be able to safely hand that child off to adults,” said Mary Granlund, chair of the Columbia Heights School Board, during a press conference after the incident.
The abduction went viral online, as images of Liam — looking scared and confused, wearing a winter jacket, a blue hat with bunny ears, and a Spider-Man backpack — showed him being detained by federal authorities.
Both father and son are currently being imprisoned in Texas along with other immigrant families abducted by the administration, living in conditions that critics have described in horrific terms.
Michigan-based attorney Eric Lee, who has clients within the facility, has said it’s a “horrible, horrible place,” with “putrid” drinking water and food that includes “bugs,” dirt, and other contaminants.
Lee’s description of how guards treat people inside the prison is equally alarming.
“The guards are just as tough as the guards at the adult facilities. This is not a place that you would want to have your child be for even 15 minutes,” he said.
Fearing that the father and boy could be deported, despite both having pending asylum cases, lawyers for the family sought a restraining order against the federal government, noting that the family has followed “all the established protocols” for seeking asylum, including “showing up for their court hearings.”
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery issued an order agreeing to that motion, formally blocking the Trump administration from deporting Liam and his father.
“[A]ny possible or anticipated removal or transfer” of the two is “IMMEDIATELY STAYED until further order from this Court,” Biery wrote in his order.
Biery also forbade the feds from transferring the two out of the district they’re currently imprisoned in “during the pendency of this litigation and until further Order of this Court,” likely to prevent the administration from being able to re-litigate the matter in a different jurisdiction.
Although the Trump administration repeatedly claimed that its mass deportation campaign would focus on the “worst of the worst” — namely, people who have committed violent crimes — data from federal agencies reveal this is far from the case.
As of the end of November 2025, more than 73 percent of detained people had no record of a criminal conviction. Many of those with convictions on their records were written up only for minor offenses, such as traffic violations.
Polling indicates that most Americans disapprove of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration raids.
According to a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted earlier this month, 61 percent of Americans believe that ICE is being “too tough” when it comes to detaining people. In a separate question, 52 percent of respondents said that ICE is making communities “less safe.”
When asked if they like Trump’s program to deport undocumented people, a majority, 54 percent, said they disapproved. Sixty-three percent of Americans said they disapproved of Trump’s specific approach to deportations.
The poll — taken after the ICE killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good but before the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Patrol agents last weekend — also showed that a majority of Americans want ICE operations in the U.S. to be decreased, with 53 percent saying so.
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