A 5-year-old boy seized by ICE and transported more than a thousand miles from his family home is said to be very sick in a Texas detention facility.
Preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos was grabbed by immigration agents in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, on Jan. 20 as they detained his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, outside the family’s apartment building. The pair was then whisked away to South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, approximately 1,200 miles away.
The heartbreaking case was seen as one of the defining moments of Donald Trump’s brutal mass deportation drive, after a photo of the scared-looking child in a bunny-eared hat and Spider-Man backpack, standing in the snow as agents took his dad away, sparked horror among the American public.
Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, a Catholic convert who is expecting his fourth child, caused further anger when he defended Liam’s detention.
Now the child is said to be feverish, vomiting, and barely responsive in a Texas family detention center, according to his mother, a school superintendent, and two members of Congress who visited Liam on Wednesday.
DHS has denied claims that they tried to use the child as “bait” to draw Liam’s pregnant mother out of her home, accusing the parents of abandoning him. Neighbors say the mother feared she would also be arrested.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, 44, flew in with Rep. Joaquin Castro, 51, to see Liam and his father in person. After posting an image online of him lying prone in his father’s arms, Crockett said what she saw was “almost indescribable.” She told CNN: “He was so lethargic. He was never alert the entire time that we were there. I was very, very concerned about his health.”
Liam’s father told the lawmakers his son was not eating and that staff in the facility had labeled the boy depressed, the Dallas congresswoman added.
Crockett said Liam barely reacted during their 30-minute visit. “We could see just a slim portion of the white of his eyes. He never opened his eyes,” she told CNN, adding that the child “just kept asking about his mom” and when he could go back to school.
Even Liam’s clothes highlight how little control the family has, Crockett said, telling CNN that detainees are given just one outfit, forcing Adrian to wash his son’s clothes every night and hang them near a vent to dry before morning.
Crockett also said detainees complained that the water “makes them sick” and that staff once found mold in a container and treated it with bleach. She said her team bottled water from the facility for independent testing.
Attorney Eric Lee, who represents other families in Dilley, told MPR the center’s conditions are “absolutely abysmal.” He said: “They mix baby formula with water that is putrid. The food has bugs in it. The guards are often verbally abusive,” he said, adding that one client who collapsed with appendicitis was told to “take a Tylenol and come back in three days.”
Dilley is a sprawling complex run by private prison giant CoreCivic. The facility, reactivated by the Trump administration as a family detention site in 2025, has long been criticized by advocates over medical care and living conditions.
Zena Stenvik, 51, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, said she spoke with Liam’s mother this week and came away alarmed. Stenvik said Liam’s health “is not doing great,” that he has been ill with a fever, and that she is “very, very concerned about his well-being in that facility,” she told Huffington Post
Worse still, Liam’s mom says his condition is worsening behind bars. “Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,” she told Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) on Monday. “He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever, and he no longer wants to eat.”
Crockett later pledged on X: “We assured them that we are doing everything in our power to reunite them with their families and that those responsible for this cruelty will be held accountable.”
Liam’s father, who, according to the family’s attorney, entered at a port of entry to seek asylum and has no criminal record, has been placed into deportation proceedings alongside his son.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, a Clinton appointee in the Western District of Texas, issued an order this week temporarily blocking federal officials from deporting the pair or transferring them out of the San Antonio court’s jurisdiction while their case proceeds, but left them in ICE custody at Dilley.
The Trump administration has defended the decision to keep a 5-year-old locked up. Vance, 41, shrugged off criticism of the boy’s arrest during a televised town hall, claiming ICE agents were simply enforcing the law “without bias” and asking whether officers were supposed to “let a 5-year-old child freeze to death” in the Minnesota cold.
Homeland Security officials have argued Liam was not the “target” of the Minneapolis operation and have suggested his father bears responsibility for what happened, pointing to what they say are immigration violations.
Advocates counter that federal officers could have exercised discretion, especially after the photo of the boy standing in the snow ignited a storm of condemnation from pediatricians, child welfare experts, and immigrant-rights groups.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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