Five-Year-Old Boy Detained By ICE Returns To Minnesota After judge Orders Release

A five-year-old boy detained by U.S. immigration authorities during a raid in Minnesota has returned home with his father after a federal judge ordered their release, according to Associated Press.

Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, arrived back in a Minneapolis suburb on Sunday after being held for weeks at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas. U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, said he collected them from the facility late on Saturday and accompanied them back to Minnesota, AP reported.

“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Castro said in a social media post. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”

The case drew national attention after a photograph circulated last month showing Liam wearing a blue bunny hat outside his home as federal agents stood nearby. The Columbia Heights Public School District said the child was one of four students detained by immigration officers in a Minneapolis suburb, according to Associated Press.

Liam and his father, who are from Ecuador, had entered the United States legally as asylum applicants. On Saturday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered their release, criticising the circumstances of their detention. The case had its genesis in “the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” Biery wrote in his ruling, AP reported.

Biery, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, said the Constitution requires that arrest warrants be issued by a judge who has found probable cause of a crime. He described the use of immigration “administrative warrants” issued internally by enforcement officials as “the fox guarding the henhouse.”

The detentions have prompted renewed calls from Democrats for changes to immigration enforcement practices following large-scale operations in Minnesota and other states. Those demands intensified after two deadly shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis involving ICE agents. Proposals from Democratic lawmakers include mandatory body cameras, an end to roving patrols and a ban on the use of face masks, according to Associated Press.

Debate over immigration enforcement has also complicated negotiations over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which remains stalled in Congress. “We’ll be talking about that in the near future,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Some Republican mayors have also signalled support for reforms. Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said the administration appeared to be reconsidering its approach. “We’re generally encouraged that the administration seems to be exploring that pivot,” Holt told CBS’s Face the Nation.

Holt said mayors were “caught in a little bit of an impossible situation” by the presence of federal immigration agents in cities, warning that events in Minneapolis could undermine trust built between authorities and residents over time. He spoke a day after Trump ordered DHS to avoid dealing with protesters unless federal property is threatened or local officials request assistance.

(With inputs from AP)