The Department of Homeland Security is trying to expedite the deportation of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his family, the family’s attorney told MPR News.
Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Joaquin Castro, the lawmaker who escorted the boy and his father back to Minnesota after they were released from detention last weekend, decried the effort.
“The Trump administration is trying to take him away again. The Department of Justice has filed for expedited deportation, which would take him away again, and so please don’t stop speaking up,” Castro, whose home state of Texas is where the two were detained for 12 days, said in a video posted to social media Friday. “Do everything that you can because your voice has made a difference, it is making a difference, and it matters to the lives of these folks.”
Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were arrested and detained by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this month. A viral photo captured the young boy’s arrest alongside his father, sparking outrage at the lengths of immigration enforcement tactics in the Twin Cities.
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The pair were released last week by a scathing judge’s order that criticized the Trump administration for what the judge attributed to “daily deportation quotas.”
Now, the administration is continuing its pursuit of Ramos and his father, who sought asylum legally from Ecuador in 2024, according to their attorney. In an interview with The New York Times, the family’s attorney said the efforts by the federal government to deport them could potentially be “retaliatory.”
“These are regular removal proceedings. They are not in expedited removal. This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to NOTUS.
The family’s attorney could not immediately be reached.
Castro, in an interview with NOTUS this week, spoke about the condition Ramos was in while he was detained.
https://x.com/NOTUSreports/status/2019829835263025598?s=20
“He was listless, lethargic. He hadn’t been eating. He was missing his family. He was scared of the guards,” Castro said.
Other Democrats on Friday also criticized the move by the Trump administration to expedite the deportations of Ramos and his father.
“The Trump-Vance regime majors in cruelty. We must fight this kind of vicious cruelty and its corrosive impact on the soul of our nation,” Sen. Raphael Warnock said on X.
The family reportedly has a hearing on Friday, although their attorney told MPR News that she is requesting more time.
“But I thought the Trump Admin is prioritizing the worst of the worst…” Rep. Seth Magaziner wrote on X.
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