Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, are back in Minnesota Feb. 1 after a federal judge ordered their release from a Texas immigration detention center.
The case drew national outrage after images circulated of Liam wearing a Spider-Man backpack and an oversized blue winter hat as officers detained him 10 days ago. The detainment become a flashpoint over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
In ordering the release of the Columbia Heights preschooler and his father, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Fred Biery wrote: “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.” The judge’s comments were a rare judicial rebuke as federal immigration operations continue across the state.
It was one of two noteworthy rulings affecting the immigration crackdown in Minnesota issued Saturday that offered sharp words for the Trump administration and sympathy for the state amid the two-month-old deportation operation.
Operation Metro Surge “will likely continue to have profound and even heartbreaking consequences,” Minnesota-based U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez wrote when denying a request to pause the federal operation.
Both judges were appointed by Democrats.
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