Federal judge stops deportation of 5-year-old boy and father whose arrest angered the nation

A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s administration from immediately deporting a five-year-old boy and his father after a viral image of their detention brought fresh anger to sweeping immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota.

Preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos was taken into federal custody from the driveway of his family’s home last week after officers arrested his father Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias. They were sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Texas.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked “any possible or anticipated removal or transfer” of the boy and his father, who brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration to secure his release, according to court filings.

Immigration officials are also blocked from sending Liam “outside of this judicial district during the pendency of this litigation and until further order of this court,” the brief order from Texas District Judge Fred Biery says.

The now-viral image of five-year-old Liam standing in his frozen driveway wearing a Spider-Man backpack and blue cap during father’s arrest fueled outrage in a city that has emerged as the latest backdrop to Trump’s mass deportation efforts, which have drawn several lawsuits and demonstrations across the country.

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Minneapolis schools and families are also reeling after a wave of recent child detentions. Several students from the Columbia Heights Public Schools system were detained by immigration officers this month, according to the district.

Days after Liam and his father were detained, a two-year-old girl and her father were brought into federal custody after immigration officers broke the man’s car window and arrested them on their way home from the grocery store, according to Minneapolis officials.

Chloe and Liam were among at least five Minneapolis-area children swept up in Trump’s mass deportation campaign in recent days.

“The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken, and our hearts are shattered. Honestly, at the end of the day, children should be in school with their classmates, and we want to focus on the purpose of educating our children,” school board chair Mary Granlund told reporters last week.

The boy and his father are originally from Ecuador and seeking asylum in the United States.

“These are not illegal aliens. They came legally and are pursuing a legal pathway,” family attorney Marc Prokosch said at a briefing last week.

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Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security officials said they had no choice but to detain the boy and his father, claiming that the boy’s mother “refused to take custody of her child.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Marcos Charles said last week that officers were targeting Liam's father during an arrest operation January 20. Neighbors and school officials accused federal officers of using the boy as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer, which Homeland Security officials called an “abject lie.” Officials claim Liam’s father fled on foot and left the boy in a vehicle in their driveway.

Greg Bovino, border patrol’s “commander-at large” for Trump’s on-the-ground operations, claimed that the agency’s officers are “experts in dealing with children.”

“Why detain a five-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights superintendent, told reporters last week.

“Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and was refused,” Stenvik said.

“Instead,” she added, “the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a five-year-old as bait.”

Liam’s preschool teacher Ella Sullivan said he is a “bright young student, and he’s so kind and loving, and his classmates miss him, and all I want is for him to be safe and back here.”

The scene mirrored arrests during other sweeping immigration enforcement operations around the country that have interrupted schools and put families, teachers and administrators on edge as they brace for agents showing up on campus and at home.

Immigration agents have also fired tear gas, joined car chases and shot at least one person in areas nearby schools, prompting campus lockdowns and alarm among students, their parents and school staff.

“This surge has changed nearly everything about our daily lives,” Stenvik said last week. “Imagine the trauma of a child being picked up by masked and armed agents, seeing their parents in handcuffs and being used to attempt to lure their mother out of the house and into danger. What has become of our country?”

The Independent has requested comment from the family’s attorney.