Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, asylum seekers who were arrested last week in Minnesota, were ordered to be released by a federal judge in Texas on Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, released from the immigration detention center at Dilley “as soon as practicable” but no later than Feb. 3.
“Any possible or anticipated removal or transfer of Petitioners under this present detention is prohibited,” the judge wrote in his order.
A screenshot of U.S. District Judge Fred Biery Jan. 31 order.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division
The boy was apprehended by immigration officials shortly after arriving home from preschool while his father was in their driveway, school officials said last week.
Both were taken to a federal detention facility in Texas.
They had a pending asylum case but no order of deportation directing that they be removed from the United States, ABC News previously reported.
The Department of Homeland Security alleged the father abandoned his son when federal agents approached to arrest him. However, that account differs from what the family’s attorney and schools officials said occurred.
“Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let them take care of the small child, but was refused,” officials from Conejo Ramos’ school said.
Marcos Charles, the top ICE official in Minneapolis, alleged that people living in the home refused to take the boy when agents approached the door.
“We will enforce the law as it’s written, but we will go above and beyond to reunite families, because that is who we are,” Charles said.
Biery had temporarily blocked the removal of the boy and his father from the district in Texas pending the habeas case challenging their detention.
People protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they march toward the South Texas Family Residential Center, January 28, 2026 in Dilley, Texas.
Joel Angel Juarez/Getty Images
In the order releasing Liam and his father, Biery said the case “has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
“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,” the judge wrote. “And the rule of law be damned.”
Judge Biery said that the father and son ultimately may “return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation,” but added that it should be a result “through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”
The judge concluded his opinion with a photo of the five-year-old when he was detained.
The superintendent of the school district attended by Liam has spoken with the family, according to a statement from the district.
“Columbia Heights Public Schools is so happy to hear the announcement that Liam and his father will be released and returned home,” the district said. “We want all children to be released from detention centers and the reunification of families who have been unjustly separated.”
-ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
