.png)
2 hours ago
1
A five-year-old boy whose arrest during sweeping immigration raids under the Trump administration sparked global outrage has returned home, a US lawmaker confirmed on Sunday.
The child, Liam Conejo Ramos, was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents alongside his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, on January 20 in Minneapolis. The pair, asylum seekers from Ecuador, were arrested as the boy was returning home from preschool.
Photographs showing the young child wearing a blue bunny hat and carrying a backpack while surrounded by federal agents circulated widely, intensifying criticism of the administration’s hardline immigration enforcement. The raids have already drawn condemnation after reports that two US citizens were fatally shot during operations by immigration agents.
Following their arrest, Liam and his father were transferred to a detention facility in Texas, hundreds of miles away from their home, where they spent 10 days before a judge ordered their release on Saturday.
Confirming the development, Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro said the child was finally back in familiar surroundings.
“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Castro wrote on X, sharing photographs of the boy after accompanying him and his father back to Minnesota.
Read also: Tinubu hails Fela as iconic voice of justice after historic Grammy honour
The Trump administration had defended the child’s detention, claiming ICE agents took him into custody after his father allegedly attempted to flee during the encounter.
However, Castro said the experience deeply affected the young boy. After visiting the detention centre last week, the lawmaker recounted the father’s distress over his son’s condition.
“His dad said that he hasn’t been himself,” Castro wrote at the time.
US District Judge Fred Biery, who ordered their release, strongly criticised the government’s actions in a sharply worded ruling.
“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatising children,” Biery wrote.
The judge further rebuked the authorities for what he described as a disregard for foundational American principles, referencing the nation’s founding document and constitutional protections.
He criticised what he called the government’s apparent “ignorance” of the US Declaration of Independence that enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation.”
Biery also cited the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
After the ruling, Castro personally travelled to retrieve the father and son from detention and flew back with them to Minnesota.
“We won’t stop until all children and families are home,” the congressman wrote.
The post Trump immigration crackdown: Detained five-yr-old returns home — Lawmaker appeared first on Latest Nigeria News | Top Stories from Ripples Nigeria.
