Judge rules Columbia Heights boy and father must be released from Texas detention center

A federal judge on Jan. 31 ordered a Columbia Heights preschool student and his father released from a Texas detention center “as soon as practicable,” but no later than Feb. 3.

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Aria, had been held more than 1,300 miles from home in a south Texas detention center in Dilley after agents took them into custody Jan. 21 as they returned home from school.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, wrote that their case “has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

Leaders in Columbia Heights schools cheered the judge’s ruling.

“Columbia Heights Public Schools is so happy to hear the announcement that Liam and his father will be released and returned home,” according to a statement from the north metro district, where more than 50% of students are Hispanic or Latino. “We want all children to be released from detention centers and the reunification of families who have been unjustly separated.”

A different judge had previously ruled that the boy and his father could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.

Federal officials previously said Aria and his son were not in the country legally and that their immigration parole expired in April.

The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an “abject lie.” The department said the father “fled” on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway. Witnesses say he ran to tell his wife to keep the door locked.

Earlier this week, Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett of Texas saw Liam sleeping in the arms of his father, who said the boy was frequently tired and not eating well at the detention facility housing about 1,100 people, according to Castro.

Detained families have reported poor conditions like worms in food, fighting for clean water and poor medical care at the detention center since its reopening last year. In December, a report filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged it held about 400 children longer than the recommended limit of 20 days.

The boy’s photo, showing an agent clutching Liam’s Spiderman backpack as he stared from under a cartoon bunny hat, went viral after the news broke. The boy and his father’s detention added to tensions that have been rising in the Twin Cities as residents decry the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in recent weeks and the arrests of others.

Arias and his son should be freed “under appropriate conditions of release no more restrictive than those in place prior to the detention at issue in this case, to a public place as soon as practicable, but in any event, no later [than] Tuesday,” the order reads.

“This is what every Minnesotan — and every parent — has prayed for,” said Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan. “This victory is a huge relief, but we cannot stop until Liam, and all the children ICE has detained, are back in their own beds.”

Gov. Tim Walz posted on X: “It should not take a court order to get a toddler out of a prison.”

In delivering his ruling — and a civics lesson for the government — Biery sharply criticized the Trump administration.

“Observing human behavior 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,” Biery wrote in his ruling. “And the rule of law be damned.”

Biery added that his court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and order them to be deported, but “do so by proper legal procedures.”

The judge added that the boy and his father may be deported in the future, but “that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”