(MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA) — Federal agents arrested 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, from the driveway of their home in Columbia Heights on January 20, 2026, setting off a legal fight and national attention that DHS escalated Friday by moving to deport the child.
The US Department of Homeland Security announced on February 6, 2026 that it is pursuing standard removal proceedings — not expedited removal — against Liam, an Ecuadorean boy detained in Minneapolis along with his father.
“These are regular removal proceedings. This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws,”
The case surged into the national spotlight after a photo spread online showing Liam, a preschooler at Columbia Heights Public Schools, wearing a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as an ICE agent placed a hand on the backpack.
Federal officials transferred Liam and his father to an ICE detention facility in Dilley, Texas, where Liam became sick and asked for his mother, according to family and visiting lawmakers.
DHS said Friday it is moving ahead through the court-based process that allows hearings and an opportunity to contest removal, rather than using expedited removal.
Both Liam and Conejo Arias have active, pending immigration court cases, and the father has no criminal record, according to the information released about the case.
The family entered the United States legally in 2024 as asylum applicants through a now-defunct Biden-era phone app system for border appointments, though DHS claims no record of it.
That posture leaves the family as asylum applicants with cases still pending, not people who have already received asylum.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery intervened after the Dilley transfer and ordered their release on January 31, 2026, directing that they be freed from detention.
Biery criticized the Trump administration’s “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas” that traumatizes children in a three-page order.
The judge signed the order with Liam’s viral image and included two Bible verses: Matthew 19:14 (“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”) and John 11:35 (“Jesus wept”).
Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro escorted the pair back to Minnesota.
They returned to Minneapolis over the weekend, but DHS filed a motion this week to dismiss their asylum claims and initiate removal proceedings.
An asylum hearing is scheduled for Friday, February 6, 2026, after being moved up from later in the month.
The timing has put the family back in court as the case draws wider scrutiny, with lawyers and local officials accusing federal authorities of responding to the publicity.
Danielle Molliver, an attorney for Liam at Nwokocha & Operana Law Offices, called the move “extraordinary” and “retaliatory.”
“It’s really frustrating as an attorney, because they keep throwing new obstacles in our way. There’s absolutely no reason that this should be expedited. It’s not very common,” Molliver said.
Minneapolis City Council member Jason Sanchez said, “This is retaliation. Our community, neighbors, and children deserve better.”
Conejo Arias told Minnesota Public Radio in Spanish, “The government is moving many pieces, it’s doing everything possible to do us harm, so that they’ll probably deport us. We live with that fear, too.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS assistant secretary, rejected the retaliation claims and said the agency’s approach remained unchanged.
“The facts in this case have not changed. ICE did not target or arrest a child,” McLaughlin said.
DHS framed the case as a standard immigration enforcement matter now moving through regular removal proceedings, a track that typically unfolds in immigration court rather than through swift administrative removal.
In practical terms, that process centers on hearings and a chance to challenge the government’s case, while leaving families vulnerable to detention and removal if they lose.
The hearing Friday follows days of fast-moving developments that began with the driveway arrest in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, and continued with the transfer to Dilley, Texas.
Liam’s image, with the bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, turned the arrest into a national symbol for many critics of the crackdown, even as DHS insisted it did not arrest a child.
Local officials and advocates pointed to Liam’s case as part of a broader pattern tied to Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The enforcement push, as described in accounts of the case, included thousands of agents deployed to Minnesota, protests, and lawsuits over unlawful arrests.
Those accounts also cited at least two fatal shootings of US citizens amid the crackdown.
Liam is among at least seven Minneapolis-area children detained recently, a figure that local attention has used to argue children have been swept into enforcement activity.
Columbia Heights Public Schools described Liam’s release as “a great and important development” and said it hopes for family reunifications.
The family’s court posture remained unsettled Friday, with DHS seeking dismissal of the asylum claims while pursuing removal proceedings at the same time.
Molliver argued the government’s latest move piled on new barriers as the family prepared to defend its case in court.
Sanchez said community members saw the case as a test of whether public attention can slow or alter federal enforcement decisions that affect families with pending immigration matters.
Conejo Arias, speaking after the detention and the return to Minnesota, described fear about what could happen next as the government pressed forward.
Biery’s release order, with its sharp language about deportation quotas and trauma to children, stood out in its tone and presentation, including the use of Liam’s viral image and religious passages.
Castro’s role in escorting the family back to Minnesota added a political dimension that DHS officials and the family’s lawyer now dispute in sharply different terms.
By Friday, DHS and the family’s counsel offered competing explanations for what the government’s motion and accelerated hearing schedule signaled.
McLaughlin said regular proceedings were underway and that enforcement was not retaliatory, while Molliver and Sanchez said the government’s steps reflected payback as the case drew notice.
The outcome of the scheduled hearing and the broader immigration court process remained ahead, with Liam and his father still facing removal as their pending cases continued to move through the system.
DHS Moves to Deport 5-Year-Old Liam Conejo Ramos from Dilley, Texas
DHS has moved to deport five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father through standard removal proceedings after a viral arrest in Minnesota. Although a federal judge recently ordered their release from a Texas detention center, citing the trauma of enforcement quotas, the government is now seeking to dismiss their asylum claims. Attorneys and local leaders have labeled the government’s accelerated legal timeline as retaliatory and extraordinary.
