Video: Watson/Lucas Zollinger
Feb 2, 2026, 4:46 p.mFeb 2, 2026, 4:46 p.m
A 5-year-old, whose arrest by ICE about two weeks ago caused headlines and outrage in the USA, is free and at home again, as several US media outlets are unanimously reporting. Videos show the boy leaving the ICE detention center in the US state of Texas with his father:
Video: Watson/Lucas Zollinger
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, were arrested by ICE on January 20 in Minneapolis. The 5-year-old boy had just returned from preschool and was still wearing his backpack when agents intercepted him outside his home. He and his father were taken to a privately owned ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas. The arrest was captured on video and photographed, and the footage caused widespread outrage in the United States and around the world.
Judge ordered release
Various authorities campaigned for the release of the boy and his father, including the Democratic member of the US House of Representatives Joaquin Castro from the state of Texas. After a visit to Dilley, he noted that the boy was in poor mental health.
Joaquin Castro visiting ICE detainees in Dilley.Image: x / @JoaquinCastrotx
US District Judge Fred Biery, appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ultimately ordered the release of the two detainees. In his decision he wrote:
“The case has its origins in the government’s ill-conceived and incompetent pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even when this requires the traumatization of children.”
A court had previously ruled that Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias could neither be deported nor relocated until the current proceedings were completed.
Joaquin Castro picked them up in Dilley on Saturday and accompanied them back to Minneapolis. He was also accompanied by US media representatives and was allowed to visit the cockpit of the scheduled flight that took him back to Minnesota.
Castro speaks about conditions in Dilley
After his visit to the detention center in Dilley, Representative Joaquin Castro reported in a twelve-minute video about the conditions there and condemned the Trump administration for its handling of migration policy.
Trump always says he wants to “deport illegal, criminal aliens,” said Castro, those are his words. Only: Not a single criminal person is imprisoned in Dilley. Furthermore, one would always hear from conservatives that they have nothing against migration, as long as it takes place in the official and correct way. But that is exactly what happened in the case of Liam Conejo Ramos and his family. They applied for asylum at a border crossing in December 2024 and have been legally staying in the USA since then. A hearing date for her application is scheduled for this February.
The detention center in Dilley, Texas.
Castro also reports that many other children like Liam are being held at Dilley, including a two-month-old baby. He sharply criticizes the Trump administration and all politicians who support his migration policy and calls on them to set foot in such an institution. Whoever is the architect of something so inhuman should at least have the courage to take a look at such a place.