Back home in Minneapolis after more than a week at an immigration facility in Texas, Ecuadorian preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos and his father are trying to regain a sense of normalcy amid ongoing court cases and anational firestorm, aftera judge orderedthey be released from federal immigration custody – ending their detention but leaving their future in the United States unresolved.
"We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal," the family's lawyers said in a statement.
The 5‑year‑old and his father were taken from their snowy suburban Minneapolis driveway earlier this month and transported more than 1,300 miles to the Dilley family detention center in south Texas, a move that drew outrage after images circulated of an agent clutching the boy's Spider‑Man backpack as he looked on beneath a cartoon bunny hat.
The family entered the US legally and applied for asylum upon arrival in 2024, their attorney has said. "They were following all the established protocols, pursuing their claim for asylum, showing up for their court hearings, and posed no safety, no flight risk and never should have been detained," the family's lawyer, Marc Prokosch has said.
Their release followed a Saturday ruling byUS District Judge Fred Biery, who ordered that Liam and his father be freed, finding there wasn't enough probable cause to detain them. The decision was narrowly focused on the legality of their detention and did not address the family's immigration status or whether they can remain in the country.
Here's what comes next as the family's immigration case proceeds through the courts:
Trump administration weighs appeal
Trump administration signaled it may appeal the ruling that allowed Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, to be released.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday the government is reviewing its options, though he declined to comment directly on the judge's opinion.
"The immigration law, the body of immigration law, is much different than our typical criminal process because of the administrative nature of what we do every day," Blanche said on ABC's "This Week," adding that while a judge ruled against the government, "to the extent that we need to appeal that judge's decision, I promise we will."
Blanche framed the case as part of a broader legal dispute over whether migrants should be held in custody while their immigration proceedings move forward or released pending those cases. He suggested appellate courts – and potentially the Supreme Court – may ultimately need to weigh in, describing what he called a "schism in the law" over immigration detention.
In his opinion, Biery took aim atadministrative warrants, which federal immigration agents often use to make arrests and which do not require a judge's signature. Calling the practice "the fox guarding the henhouse," Biery wrote that the Constitution requires arrests to be authorized by an independent judicial officer.
While an appeal could clarify how far the government's detention authority extends, the broader questions raised by the case may take months, or longer, to resolve.
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A separate asylum case
In his opinion, Biery noted Liam and his father could still be required to leave the US under what he described as the "arcane" immigration system, possibly through deportation or voluntary departure. "But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place," he wrote.
Liam and his parents entered the US legally and applied for asylum after presenting themselves to border officials in Texas in December 2024, according to Prokosch.
The economic situation, insecurity, and unstable employment conditions in Ecuador led Arias and his wife to leave their country "for a good life," his brother Luis Conejotold CNN earlier.
The Department of Homeland security hasdisputedthat the father entered the US legally and said he's an "illegal alien" who was the target of the operation in which he and Liam were taken.
Liam's father does not appear to have a criminal record in Minnesota, according to Prokosch. A CNN search of public records also did not reveal any criminal record for Arias, and he did not have a criminal record in Ecuador, his origin country, according to the country's Interior Ministry.
The asylum case is still pending in immigration court.
Even as Liam has returned home, elected officials and school leaders have continued to call for the release of children and families held in immigration detention, saying there are systemic problems in how arrests involving minors are carried out.
"It should not take a court order to get a toddler out of a prison," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said onsocial mediafollowing the ruling.
Liam is at least the fourth child from his school district to be taken into immigration custody in the past month, according to Columbia Heights Public Schools.
"We want all children to be released from detention centers and the reunification of families who have been unjustly separated," the district said in a statement.
CNN's Zoe Sottile, Elizabeth Wolfe, and Ed Lavandera contributed to this report.
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