A 5-year-old child who was taken into custody in Minneapolis last week remains in custody with his father in Texas
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US Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett visited a five-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father at a Texas federal facility Wednesday, days after the boy was taken into custody by federal agents in Minneapolis.
The case added to the furor over the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and provided fuel for Democrats and others pushing back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Castro said law enforcement met with Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, for about 30 minutes in a courtroom inside the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, near San Antonio.
Outside the facility, Texas state police confronted people who were there showing support for the inmates inside.
A photo of the boy, wearing a blue winter hat and a Spider-Man backpack as he was tied up, went viral and sparked a strong reaction. Castro described the child as “a symbol of the brutality of the ICE system and the detention system.”
‘You want to go back to school’
According to Castro, Liam’s father says that the boy has been sleeping a lot, asking about his mother and his classmates and saying that he wants to go back to school.
“I would ask President Trump, who also has grandchildren the age of some of the children we met today, to think about what it would be like for his grandchildren to be locked up,” Castro said at a press conference later Wednesday, where he and other Democrats called for Liam and the other prisoners to be released.
The meeting was part of the Democrats’ midterm election efforts to dominate Congress and to highlight the impact of Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants in Minnesota and elsewhere.
ICE agents took Liam and his father into custody on Jan. 20 in Minneapolis as part of a campaign that has devastated the city and caused massive protests among residents. Two American citizens were shot and killed by government officials at the same time.
US Vice President JD Vance has stood by the actions of ICE officials after they arrested Liam Conejo Ramos and his five-year-old father in a suburb of Minneapolis, sparking new tensions over immigration policies.
Neighbors and school officials say federal immigration officials used the student as a “distraction” by telling him to knock on the door of his house so his mother would answer.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called that description of events a “disgusting lie.” The father said and ran away on foot, leaving the boy in the car running in their direction.
Federal officials have said the father was in the US illegally, without providing details.
A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary injunction barring the Trump administration from removing Ramos and Arias from the US as their arrests are challenged.
A lawyer for the family said Arias had an asylum application that allowed him to stay in the country. An online court summary shows the lawsuit was filed on Dec. 17, 2024, and was served by the immigration court inside the Dilley Detention Center.
After the visit, Castro posted a photo of the meeting on social media. In it, Liam is seen in his father’s arms with his eyes closed.
He recently visited Liam and his father at Dilley Detention Centre. I wanted him to be released and told him how much his family, his school and our country love him and pray for him. pic.twitter.com/9a2pCuapYd
“I wanted him to be released and I told him how much his family, his school and our country love him and pray for him,” Castro wrote on social media.
‘Children are not criminals’
Crockett, a Texas Democrat seeking his party’s Senate nomination, said Wednesday that Liam was one of the children lawmakers met at the center, and that the children told them they were not getting an education.
“We have to be better than this,” he said.
Outside the detention center on Wednesday, the Texas state police sent chemicals that angered the protesters, who had gathered to support the prisoners held at the facility. Others in the large group were beating drums, chanting and holding signs with phrases such as, “Children are not criminals!”
As the protesters neared the center, Texas State Police arrived in a school bus and yelled at the crowd to back off. Some police officers then fired pepper balls, dispersing the crowd.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement that police arrested two people and used pepper balls after protesters disobeyed orders to disperse, adding that protesters also broke into the protest area and spat at police.
Castro, a prominent member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, accused Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a recent video of running an “unlawful” immigration enforcement operation that is “a bounty hunter.”
Like Castro, Crockett and his main Senate Democratic rival, Rep. James Talarico, are among the Democrats who want Noem to be impeached. Crockett also voted against a pending appropriations bill that would fund Noem’s department and its immigration enforcement agencies.
The Republican-controlled House passed the DHS funding bill with the help of a minority of Democrats, days before 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
Several Senate Democrats said after Pretti’s death they would not accept DHS funding, even if it means a partial government shutdown that begins this weekend.
