Kristi Noem's DHS goes after five-year-old boy detained by ICE following his release from detention center
By Wilco Martinez-Cachero
Daily Mail
Feb 6, 2026
Liam Conejo Ramos, five, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, on January 20
Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested to fast–track the deportation of the five–year–old boy who was detained by federal immigration agents while walking home from school in Minneapolis.
Liam Conejo Ramos was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, on January 20.
He was apprehended wearing a bunny–shaped blue beanie and a Spider–Man backpack, with images from his arrest going viral and sparking backlash across both aisles.
The little boy and his father Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias were taken to a detention facility more than 1,000 miles away in Texas.
They were released on Sunday and returned home – but the federal government filed a motion on Wednesday to expedite their deportation proceedings.
Lawyers from the DHS have asked to terminate the family's asylum case, which would subsequently remove him from the country.
The family's immigration attorney, Danielle Molliver, called the government's request 'retaliatory.'
'It's really frustrating as an attorney, because they keep throwing new obstacles in our way,' she told Minnesota Public Radio. 'There's absolutely no reason that this should be expedited. It's not very common.'
Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security filed a motion on Wednesday to fast-track the deportation of Liam and his father
DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Mail: 'These are regular removal proceedings. This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation's immigration laws.'
She added: 'He will receive full due process.'
Liam's father said the family was living in 'fear' while waiting to see how the deportation proceedings played out.
'The government is moving many pieces,' Arias told MPR. 'It's doing everything possible to do us harm, so that they'll probably deport us.'
The family cannot be deported to their home country of Ecuador, according to their lawyer. They are able to apply for asylum in a third country.
Government lawyers argued that Liam's father entered the US illegally from Ecuador in December 2024.
They said Arias and his son were not in the country legally after their immigration parole expired in April.
On the other hand, the family's lawyer claimed he had an asylum claim pending allowing him to remain in the country.
Images from Liam's arrest with the little boy donning a bunny–shaped blue beanie and sporting a Spider–Man backpack went viral
Liam and his father were held at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, near San Antonio, after being detained.
Arias said Liam appeared to be traumatized following his arrest and stint in the immigrant detention center.
'He hasn't been the same since this all happened,' Arias told Telemundo. 'He calls me when he wakes up and says, 'Daddy, daddy,' so I have to go to him.'
The father added that the boy was scared that ICE would arrest him and his family again.
Erika Ramos, the mother, claimed the circumstances inside the center were 'deeply concerning.'
'Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,' she told MPR. 'He has stomach pain, he's vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat.'
On Saturday morning, US District Judge Fred Biery ordered that the father and son be freed 'as soon as practicable.'
Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias, Liam's father, said the little boy was traumatized after being arrested by ICE and fearful that it could happen again
Biery appeared to take aim at the Trump administration's immigration crackdown as he demanded the release.
He wrote: '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.'
Liam and his dad returned to Minnesota on Sunday. They were personally escorted home by Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, who had visited them while detained.
The Trump administration previously claimed that Liam's dad was a 'criminal illegal alien' who 'abandoned his child as he fled from ICE officers.'
Immigration officials were making sure that the child was 'kept safe in the bitter cold,' ICE wrote on X.
The agency said they made 'multiple attempts to get the family inside the house to take custody of the child' and claimed they refused.
'The father told officers he wanted the child to remain with him,' the agency alleged.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Molliver, the family's immigration attorney, for comment.
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