A federal judge has issued a temporary order halting the deportation of Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old detained by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, the Associated Press reports.
The the boy and his father are now being held in the South Texas Family Residential Center, located in the town of Dilley, roughly an hour southwest of San Antonio.
U.S. Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio on Monday placed a hold on any attempt to remove or transfer of the 5-year-old and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, while a court case over their immigration status proceeds.
The pair were taken into custody outside their home in Minnesota, where eyewitnesses alleged that federal agents used the child as “bait” to arrest the father as well.
On Saturday, a protest broke out at the Dilley facility over the treatment of the child, according to immigration ttorney Eric Lee, who was on the scene. Lee said detainees had been under an internet blackout since an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis woman Renee Good and had only just learned of the previous day’s general strike in Minnesota, in which they wished to participate.
Lee was at the facility for a client visit before being abruptly forced to leave. From the parking lot, he captured glimpses of the protest through perimeter walls in a series of X videos that went viral. An estimated 1,000 detainees, or 80% of the detention center’s population, participated in the strike, according to Lee.
On Wednesday, Democratic U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Jasmine Crockett of Dallas are scheduled to meet with Liam Conejo Ramos and his father at the Dilley detention facility. Castro had already submitted a request to visit the facility last Tuesday when the pair were arrested and sent to the South Texas facility.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s draconian immigration crackdown, said the father entered the country illegally in December 2024. However, the family’s attorney Jennifer Scarborough said the man had a pending asylum claim allowing him to stay in the country.
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