Family was sent to a center more than 2,000 kilometers from home. Liam Conejo Ramos became a symbol of ICE’s inappropriate actions
A federal judge ordered the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, as well as his father, from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
Ramos and his father had been taken by immigration agents (known as ICE) at their home, in a suburb of Minneapolis, after the child arrived home from school, at a time when the city was covered in snow. It was January 20th.
They were sent to a detection center in Texas, designed to receive families, 2092 kilometers away. They have been detained for more than a week.
According to CNN, the court order means that the child, who attends pre-school, and his father will be released by Tuesday, taking into account that the respective regularization process is ongoing.
Liam’s arrest – whose arrest photo, with an ICE agent holding the boy’s Spider-Man backpack, while the child looked down – fueled growing outrage at the repression being carried out against immigrants in the USA, promoted by the Trump administration – and which has its epicenter in Minneapolis.
Although the arrests identified criminals and undocumented people, the US president’s targets, the truth is that legal residents, families and young children were also affected.
Liam was the fourth child from his school area to be taken away by immigration officers in a two-week period.
Over the weekend, a child was returned to his mother in Minneapolis after being similarly detained and sent to Texas with his father.
