Two brothers from the same school district as 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos have been released from Dilley’s South Texas Family Residential Center, Minnesota Public Radio reports.
The two unnamed siblings — a 2nd grader and a 5th grader — were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week and detained at the Dilley facility along with Liam Ramos and Elizabeth Zuna, another student of the same Columbia Heights School District in the suburbs of Minneapolis.
On Wednesday, the brothers and their mother were released and flown back to Minnesota, MPR reports. Jason Kuhlman, principal of Valley View Elementary School in Columbia Heights, picked them up at the Twin Cities airport and brought them home safely.
“Mother and sons are in good health and eager to resume the boys’ schooling,” school officials said in a statement.
A total of six students from the district had been confirmed as being inside facility last week. School officials previously told nonprofit newsroom Sahan Journal that one more student from the district now remains in the facility — an unnamed 17 year old.
However, school officials now tell MPR that the number of Columbia Heights district students detained at Dilley could be higher. District leaders told MPR the two children who returned with their mother on Wednesday found one of their 5th grade classmates from Valley View Elementary while they were at the South Texas lockup.
District officials also said they’re unsure of the whereabouts of other children still missing from their schools. It’s unclear at this time whether the missing students were detained by ICE or they moved away without notifying the school.
School officials and family attorneys representing the detained children also told MPR that many of the children end up at Dilley within hours of their arrest — in some cases, against court orders and without being provided access to legal counsel as is required by law.
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