- An immigration judge denied the asylum claims of Liam Conejo Ramos and his family from Ecuador.
- The family intends to appeal the removal order following a highly publicized legal and political battle.
- The case drew national scrutiny after reports of harsh detention conditions and controversial arrest tactics.
(COLUMBIA HEIGHTS) — An immigration judge denied the asylum claims of Liam Conejo Ramos, his father Adrian Conejo Arias and the rest of their family from Ecuador, ordering their removal from the United States in a case that has drawn wide attention in Minnesota and beyond.
Danielle Molliver, the family’s Minneapolis lawyer, confirmed the asylum denial and removal order and said the legal fight is continuing. The Columbia Heights school district also confirmed the decision, calling it “heartbreaking” and saying the family intends to appeal.
The ruling leaves the family facing deportation after a case that turned from a local enforcement action into a broader dispute over detention tactics, asylum policy and the treatment of children in immigration custody. Liam Conejo Ramos is 5 years old.
The family entered the United States in 2024 seeking asylum. Their immigration court case was docketed on December 17, 2024.
Attention intensified on January 20, 2026, when ICE agents detained Liam and Adrian outside their home in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, during Operation Metro Surge. Liam was wearing a blue bunny hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack.
Witnesses and Molliver said agents used Liam as “bait” to lure others from the house, even though multiple adults were available to take custody of him. ICE said Adrian abandoned the boy in the cold while fleeing.
Authorities then sent the family to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. What followed pushed the case far beyond a routine removal proceeding.
Lawyers described conditions at the center as involving “putrid” water, bug-contaminated food and harsh guards. Liam’s mother said the child became sick there.
“Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality. He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever, and he no longer wants to eat,”
Those reports of illness and detention conditions deepened concern around the case and helped drive legal and political scrutiny. The family’s treatment became a focus for local officials, immigration advocates and school community members after news of the arrest spread through Columbia Heights.
The legal turning point came on January 31, 2026, when U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas ordered the family’s release. His order used unusually sharp language to criticize the government’s conduct.
Biery condemned the detention as stemming from an “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children” and a “perfidious lust for unbridled power.” He also included Bible verses Matthew 19:14 and John 11:35.
The order shifted the public response around the case. What had begun as an arrest during an immigration enforcement operation became a public fight over how federal authorities handled a family with a young child.
Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro helped the family return to Minneapolis after the release order. Back in Minnesota, the case remained active in immigration court even as the family regained temporary freedom.
The government moved again in early February 2026. DHS, under Secretary Kristi Noem, filed an expedited motion to terminate the family’s asylum claims.
Lawyers for the family called that move “retaliatory” and uncommon, arguing that the family had followed protocols and committed no rule violations. The filing turned the dispute into more than a challenge over one family’s status, raising questions about whether the case reflected standard enforcement, punishment for speaking out, or a tougher approach to asylum claims.
Trump officials argued the family had improperly applied for asylum and blamed Biden-era policies. That political framing ran alongside the family’s legal battle, with each side presenting the case as evidence of broader failures in the immigration system.
A hearing followed, leading to the asylum denial and removal order now facing the family. The immigration judge’s decision marked a new phase in a case that has already passed through detention, federal court intervention and a renewed push by DHS to end the family’s claims.
For Columbia Heights, the case carried an immediate local impact because it involved a young child seized outside his home and then sent hundreds of miles away. For the family, the stakes remained direct and personal: whether they would be allowed to stay in the country after arriving in 2024 seeking protection.
Molliver confirmed that the family plans to appeal. The school district said it hoped for a positive outcome.
Post-release, Adrian described continuing trauma for Liam.
“He hasn’t been the same since this all happened. He calls me when he wakes up and says, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ so I have to go to him.”
That account has become one of the most closely watched parts of the case, because it ties the legal dispute to the aftereffects of detention on a child. Biery’s order focused in part on that same issue, criticizing an enforcement approach that, in his view, harmed children.
The family’s case unfolded against a larger shift in immigration politics after President Trump returned to office, with federal officials taking a harder line on asylum and interior enforcement. In this dispute, that broader debate surfaced through the government’s push to end the family’s claims and through the family lawyer’s argument that the move was out of the ordinary.
Yet the record of the case also rests on a simple chronology. The family came from Ecuador in 2024 and sought asylum. The court docket opened on December 17, 2024. ICE detained Liam and Adrian on January 20, 2026, outside their Columbia Heights home during Operation Metro Surge. The family went to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. Biery ordered their release on January 31, 2026. DHS then filed its expedited motion in early February 2026. A hearing followed, and the immigration judge denied asylum and ordered removal.
Each step drew wider attention than the last. The image of Liam in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack became a shorthand for the case in public discussion, while the allegations over how the arrest was carried out fueled anger from supporters of the family and denials from federal authorities.
At the center, though, remained the question before the immigration court: whether Liam Conejo Ramos, Adrian Conejo Arias and their relatives had established claims for asylum. The judge’s answer was no, leaving appeal as the next step.
The school district’s response reflected how deeply the case had reached into the community. By calling the result “heartbreaking,” it signaled that the proceedings had become more than a private legal matter for one household.
The family’s appeal now stands as the next chapter. For Liam, Adrian and their relatives, the removal order does not end the case, but it does place them in immediate jeopardy of deportation unless that decision is reversed.
Adrian’s description of his son’s distress offered the clearest sense of what remains unresolved beyond the court filings and detention records.
“He hasn’t been the same since this all happened,” Adrian said.
