Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, asylum seekers who were detained by federal agents in Minneapolis last week and sent to a Texas detention facility, boarded a plane home on Sunday after a judge ordered the government to release them.
“I’m happy to finally be going home,” Conejo Arias told ABC News’ John Quiñones as the pair boarded their flight in San Antonio back to Minneapolis.
Exclusive ABC News videos show Conejo Arias carrying his son while boarding the plane home to Minneapolis.
Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, board a flight, Feb. 1, 2026, from San Antonio back to their home in Minneapolis after a federal judge ordered that they be released from a Texas immigration detention facility.
ABC News
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery had ordered on Saturday that the pair be released from the immigration detention center at Dilley “as soon as practicable” but no later than Feb. 3.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who last week shared images of the boy after his visit to the detention center, also boarded the flight with the father and son.
Liam was detained on Jan. 20 by immigration agents 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.
Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, is detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after arriving home from preschool, Jan. 20, 2026, in a Minneapolis suburb.
Ali Daniels via AP
They had a pending asylum case but no order of deportation directing that they be removed from the United States, ABC News previously reported.
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.”
But in a statement after the judge’s ruling on Saturday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “The facts in this case have NOT changed: ICE did NOT target or arrest a child.”
“On January 20, ICE conducted a targeted operation to arrest Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias an illegal alien from Ecuador who was RELEASED into the U.S. by the Biden administration,” McLaughlin said. “As agents approached, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias fled on foot — abandoning his child.”
McLaughlin said ICE officers remained with Liam while other officers apprehended his father. Officers, according to McLaughlin, attempted to place Liam with his “alleged mother” who was inside the house, but she allegedly refused to accept custody of the child.
McLaughlin said Conejo Arias told officers he wanted his son to remain with him.
McLaughlin’s 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.
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.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
