Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos is back in Minneapolis, finally sleeping in his own bed instead of a government bunk. After days in federal custody in Texas with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, the little boy at the center of a fast-moving legal and political fight has been released and flown home. His return closes one chapter of a wrenching story, even as it raises bigger questions about how the United States treats children in immigration detention.
The reunion in Minnesota is a relief for Liam’s family and community, who watched his case explode from a local scare into a national flashpoint. It is also a reminder that behind every policy debate are real kids, with Spider-Man backpacks, classmates, and bedtime routines that do not pause for court calendars.
The arrest that jolted a Minnesota neighborhood
The story began in a Minneapolis suburb when immigration agents moved in on Adrian Conejo Arias as he was taking his son to school. Five-year-old Liam, clutching his Spider-Man backpack, was swept up in the arrest and separated from the familiar rhythm of his classroom and neighborhood streets. A striking image of an agent holding that Spider-Man bag quickly became shorthand for the human stakes of the operation, which unfolded in front of the same community that had watched Liam walk into kindergarten just days earlier, on January 20, 2026, in a Minneapolis suburb that would soon be thrust into the national spotlight over Liam and his Man backpack.
After the arrest, both father and son were transported far from home to a federal detention facility in Texas, a journey that turned a routine school morning into a cross-country ordeal. The pair were taken to a site in DILLEY, Texas, where families are held in immigration custody, and where five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos suddenly found himself behind barbed wire instead of on a playground. For his Minnesota neighbors, the distance was not just measured in miles but in how quickly a child’s normal life could be interrupted by federal power.
A judge steps in and calls out constitutional violations
The turning point came when a federal judge in Texas reviewed the case and decided that what happened to Liam and his father went too far. In an order filed in Jan, the judge concluded that their confinement violated constitutional protections, a sharp rebuke of how the detention had been handled. That ruling, which followed pressure from Texas Democratic members of Congress and growing public scrutiny, made clear that the government could not simply warehouse a five-year-old and his parent without running into the limits set by the Constitution, as reflected in the detailed order described by The Associated Press.
Another account of the ruling underscored how explicit the court was about those limits. The Saturday decision stated that their confinement violated constitutional protections, language that left little doubt about the judge’s view of the detention center’s role in this case. The order, filed Jan. 31 by a federal judge in Texas, directed that Liam and his father be released from the facility in Dilley, a move that immediately shifted the trajectory of the case and set in motion travel plans back to Minnesota, as laid out in the judge’s order described by Jonathan Limehouse of USA TODAY.
The flight out of Texas and a boy in the cockpit
Once the court ordered their release, the logistics of getting a young child and his father out of detention and onto a plane moved quickly. Both were taken from the Dilley facility to an airport in Texas, where they boarded a commercial flight bound for Minneapolis. On that journey, five-year-old Liam, still processing days in custody, was invited into the flight deck to meet the pilots, a small gesture that briefly turned a stressful trip into something closer to an adventure, as described in coverage of both being taken from Texas to the plane.
Exclusive video from the flight captured Adrian Conejo Arias carrying his son down the jet bridge, the boy’s legs wrapped around his father’s waist, as they headed for their seats. On board, the crew treated Liam like a special guest, inviting him to visit the cockpit and see the controls up close. The images of the boy in the flight deck, smiling shyly next to the pilots, stood in stark contrast to the earlier photos from detention and offered a rare moment of levity in a week defined by legal filings and political statements, as shown in the Exclusive ABC News footage shared from the plane.
“Liam is home”: a Minnesota welcome and a community exhale
When the plane landed, the story shifted from courtrooms and detention centers to airport arrivals and family hugs. Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, stepped off the flight and into a crowd of supporters who had followed every twist of their case. The pair were back in Minnesota, greeted by relatives, advocates, and local leaders who had pushed for their release and now watched the five-year-old run into open arms, a scene captured as Liam Conejo Ramos his father arrived home.
Earlier that same morning, cameras in the terminal showed five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father walking through the airport as they returned to Minnesota Sunday, the boy looking both tired and curious as he took in the crowd. Local coverage emphasized how the community had rallied around the family, from neighbors to school staff, and how the return of Liam Ramos and his father to Minnesota Sunday felt like a collective exhale after days of uncertainty.
Political shockwaves and a test for immigration policy
Liam’s case did not unfold in a vacuum. It landed squarely in the middle of a national fight over immigration enforcement, family detention, and the role of federal courts in checking executive power. President Donald Trump, who has made aggressive border and interior enforcement a signature of his administration, now faces a vivid example of how those policies can collide with public opinion when a five-year-old is involved. National coverage framed Liam Ramos’s return to Minnesota as part of a broader NATION debate over ICE practices and the administration’s approach, with one account explicitly tying the case to Liam Ramos, Minnesota,.
Members of Congress also seized on the case as a symbol of what they argue is a broken system. Congresswoman Ilan Omar highlighted the ordeal of Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, pointing to their time in custody as evidence that current enforcement tools are too blunt when children are involved. Her comments echoed a wider chorus of lawmakers and advocates who say the Dilley facility and similar centers should not be holding kids like Liam at all, a critique captured in reporting that described how Congresswoman Ilan Omar amplified the story of Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias in Minnesota.
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