Five-Year-Old Boy Detained By ICE Released From Detention Camp Along With His Father, Texas Officials Say
By Alvin H. Green IV
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father have officially been freed from an ICE internment camp in Texas. And although they both deserve their peace and quiet, the message the Trump Administration is trying to send is loud and clear.
Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were taken by ICE on Jan. 20th as Liam came home from preschool. Young Liam was reportedly used as bait to capture his family, as ICE agents had him knock on his front door to let ICE see if anyone was home. According to NBC, as ICE agents began to chase down Adrian, a local school official offered to take Liam. The agents refused.
Courtesy: Getty Images
The family had requested asylum in the US after entering through a port in 2024, said Marc Prokosch, the family's lawyer. According to him, they have been actively going through the steps to get citizenship for almost a year and have been going through the process without incident. He called Liam’s taking “... cruelty.”
US District Judge Fred Biery ordered the release after authorizing an emergency request from the family’s lawyer, calling their capture ‘...ill-conceived and incompetent.”
Although Liam and his father have been safely returned, there are more families in Columbia Heights missing their children, as three additional students were taken from the town two weeks prior, according to CBS. This incident, along with so many others, goes to show the true state of ICE in America.
Originally, the Trump Administration promised they would only use ICE to capture “the worst of the worst”, and as time goes on, their definition of “the worst” has gotten, both prophetically and ironically, very liberal. According to a study done by FactCheck.org, 43% of people taken by ICE within the last few months have had no criminal record, and the number of those arrested by ICE that had a criminal record has dropped from 44.7% to 31.8%.
“ICE was never going to stop at just criminals,” said Chandler Gates, a First-Year student from Texas. “It was always going to go from high crimes to misdemeanors, misdemeanors to petty theft, and now they're kidnapping children.” When asked if Chandler thought regulation was enough to stop instances like these from occurring, he said, “Oh f**K no, absolutely not. These bastards need to be tried and [hanged].”
Not only have ICE agents abducted countless children from their families and killed nine American citizens in January alone, but there have also been multiple reports of agents sexually harassing and raping inmates in detention centers while other agents keep watch. At least thirty ICE agents from 2015-2025 have been accused of raping women held in detention centers across the country, with 20 of these instances involving underage girls and minors. According to The New Republic, most of these cases occurred within the last two years.
Kristi Noem and the DHS have yet to respond to these accusations.
As of right now, there are no ongoing widespread investigations into how many inmates have been assaulted. ICE is expected to kill at least one hundred Americans by the end of the year.
