Same judge previously ordered pair not removed from US, after preschooler detained with father on 20 January
A US judge has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from a Texas detention center by Tuesday after they were taken into custody by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Liam Conejo Ramos, an Ecuadorian boy, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on 20 January after returning from school with his father. Images of the Minnesota preschooler wearing a bunny hat and a plaid coat went viral online, sparking outrage across the country after claims that the child, who was on the driveway of his home during the arrest, was used as bait to try to arrest his mother inside the house.
US district judge Fred Biery said in his ruling on Saturday that “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”.
Biery previously ruled that the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, could not be removed from the US. On Saturday’s order, Biery included a photo of the five-year-old boy and references to two lines in the Bible: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,” and: “Jesus Wept.”
