Federal judge orders release of detained 5-year-old and father from Dilley facility

A federal judge ordered the release of a father and his 5-year-old son from a South Texas family detention facility, rejecting the government’s recent enforcement tactics and demanding their freedom "by Tuesday," court filings show. The pair were taken into custody after a Jan. 20 immigration operation in a Minneapolis suburb that produced a widely circulated photograph of the child wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, chief judge of the Western District of Texas, wrote that the case "has its genesis in the ill‑conceived and incompetently‑implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children." The judge added that while the family "may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self‑deportation," such outcomes should follow "a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place."

Court papers and attorney statements identify the boy as Liam Conejo Ramos and describe the father as an Ecuadorian national who entered the United States as an asylum applicant. Reporting and filings use multiple spellings for the father's name; news reports have variously listed Adrian Conejo Arias, Adrian Conejo Adrias and Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias. The pair were transferred shortly after the Minnesota operation to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, a facility that has become a focal point for protests and congressional scrutiny.

The order includes an attached photograph of the child and, in the copy circulated by court sources, Bible verse references beneath the judge’s signature. The image from the Minneapolis encounter helped prompt national attention and intensified criticism of the administration’s enforcement priorities. Local school officials had said the child attends Valley View Elementary and that three other students from the same Minneapolis suburb were detained earlier in January: a 10-year-old and two 17-year-olds.

Members of Congress visited the Dilley facility in the days before the order. Representative Joaquin Castro met with the father and son and said Liam was becoming "depressed" in custody; Castro said he "reached out to Liam's mom and lawyers to let them know I will continue to do everything I can to make sure he is safe." Representatives Jasmine Crockett and Greg Casar also met with the family and Crockett posted that "Today is a great day, but please know, there are so many other children whose pics didn't go viral languishing at Dilley, unconstitutionally."

Immigration officials did not provide an immediate public response to the judge’s order. Family counsel previously confirmed the transfer to the Dilley facility; a Department of Homeland Security office did not immediately return requests for comment. A prior judicial ruling had already blocked the government from removing the family from the country, further complicating the case’s trajectory.

The judge’s language frames a broader question about how deportation targets and operational practices intersect with protections for children and asylum seekers, and it is likely to reverberate through ongoing litigation over family detention. Key details remain unresolved: the definitive legal spelling of the father's name, the precise docket and legal rationale in the full order, and the current status of the other minors detained in the Minneapolis operation. Journalists and public officials seeking to track enforcement practices will be watching whether the court’s rebuke prompts policy changes at the agencies that conduct immigration raids.