A US federal judge has ordered the immediate release of a five-year-old boy and his father from an immigration detention centre in Texas, sharply criticising the government’s handling of the case and the broader deportation strategy behind it.
A US federal judge has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from an immigration detention centre in Texas, delivering a scathing rebuke of the government’s actions and condemning what he described as a “perfidious lust for unbridled power”.
US District Judge Fred Biery ruled that the child, Liam Conejo Ramos, and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, must be freed “as soon as practicable”, setting a firm deadline of Tuesday as their immigration case continues.
Family reunited after week-long detention
The father and son have since returned to Minnesota after being held for more than a week at a family detention facility in San Antonio. They were detained outside their home in suburban Minneapolis and transported roughly 1,300 miles away by immigration authorities.
The ruling was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News. In a statement issued on Saturday, the family’s lawyers said they were coordinating a safe reunification and requested privacy, citing the emotional toll of the ordeal.
Images of child spark national outrage
The case triggered widespread outrage after images circulated of Liam wearing a fluffy blue bunny hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack as agents took him into custody in his driveway.
Immigration officials later said the child had not been “targeted”, claiming the operation was aimed at his father, whom they described as an “illegal alien” who had “abandoned” his son when approached.
Court slams deportation strategy
In an unusually forceful written opinion, Judge Biery sharply criticised immigration enforcement practices, invoking the Declaration of Independence and warning that modern government actions risked echoing authoritarian abuses.
He said the detention resulted from a poorly executed deportation strategy driven by numerical targets rather than sound judgment, arguing that such policies inflict unnecessary trauma on children.
“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas,” Biery wrote, “apparently even if it requires traumatising children.”
Concerns over administrative warrants
The judge also criticised the use of administrative warrants, which are issued internally by immigration agencies without judicial approval. He said such warrants fail to meet constitutional standards and amount to allowing the executive branch to police itself.
While acknowledging that Liam and his father could ultimately face deportation under US law, Biery stressed that any such outcome should follow a fair and humane process, rather than what he described as a chaotic system.
“Observing human behaviour confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,” he wrote.
Family sought asylum, lawyer says
Marc Prokosch, a lawyer representing the family, said the pair had arrived in the United States from Ecuador in 2024 to seek asylum and had been complying with immigration requirements. He confirmed they were detained at a centre in San Antonio before the court intervened.
Wider crackdown continues in Minneapolis
The case unfolded amid intensified immigration enforcement in Minneapolis under an initiative known as “Operation Metro Surge”, part of a broader push by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In recent days, federal officials suggested they may scale back the operation following public backlash over the fatal shooting of two US citizens by federal agents in the city. However, on Saturday, a separate federal judge rejected a request by state authorities to block the deployment of thousands of immigration agents, ruling that the state had failed to show the operation was unlawful.
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