Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who were detained by immigration officers in Minnesota and held at an ICE facility in Texas, have been released a day after a judge’s order that excoriated the Trump administration for its conduct in the case. They have returned to Minnesota, according to the office of Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The two were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. Liam and his father were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
Katherine Schneider, a spokesperson for Castro, a Democrat, confirmed that the two had arrived home. She said Castro picked them up from Dilley on Saturday night and escorted them home Sunday to Minnesota.
The Associated Press emailed the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the father and son’s release. There was no immediate response.
Images of the young boy wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack and surrounded by immigration officers drew outrage about the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.
Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has rejected that description. It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
Castro wrote a letter to Liam while they were on the plane to Minnesota, in which he told the young boy he has “moved the world.”
“Your family, school and many strangers said prayers for you and offered whatever they could do to see you back home,” Castro wrote. A photo of the letter was posted on social media. “Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t your home. America became the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth because of immigrants not in spite of them.”
In a social media post, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) welcomed the boy back to Minnesota, saying that he “should be in school and with family — not in detention,” adding, “Now ICE needs to leave.”
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