Minnesota – A United States federal judge has ordered the release of five year old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Conejo Arias after the pair were detained during an immigration raid in Minnesota.
The ruling was issued on January 31 by U.S. District Judge Fred Biery following the detention of the Ecuadorean father and son earlier this month in a Minneapolis suburb. The child became widely known after a photo circulated showing him wearing a blue bunny hat outside his home while federal agents stood nearby.
According to the Columbia Heights Public School District, Liam was one of four students detained by immigration officials during the operation. The boy and his father had entered the United States legally as asylum applicants before being transferred to a family detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
Judge Biery criticised the manner in which the arrests were carried out, linking them to what he described as a push to meet deportation targets.
“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,” Biery wrote in his ruling.
“Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self deportation. But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”
The judge also questioned the legal basis used by immigration officers, noting that arrests under the United States Constitution require a warrant issued by a judge who has found probable cause of a crime.
The use of administrative warrants issued internally by immigration authorities “is called the fox guarding the henhouse,” Biery wrote.
In a sharply worded order running three pages, the judge compared the conduct of the administration of President Donald Trump to actions condemned in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, including sending “Swarms of Officers to harass our People,” exciting “domestic Insurrection among us” and “quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us.”
“Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,” Biery wrote. “And the rule of law be damned.”
The case also revealed that armed and masked officers detained two 17 year olds and a 10 year old during the same operation, according to school district superintendent Zena Stenvik.
The family’s attorney, Marc Prokosch, confirmed their detention in Texas, while requests for comment sent to him and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were not immediately answered.
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