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US judge orders release of five-year-old and father from ICE detention
Judge says the case stemmed from ‘ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented’ deportation quotas.
A federal judge in the United States has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from a facility in Texas amid an outcry over their detention during an immigration raid in Minnesota.
In a decision on Saturday, US District Judge Fred Biery ruled Liam Conejo Ramos’s detention as illegal, while also condemning “the perfidious lust for unbridled power” and “the imposition of cruelty” by “some among us”.
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The scathing opinion came as photos of the boy – clad in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took him away in a suburb of the city of Minneapolis – became a symbol of the immigration crackdown launched by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“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 did not specify the deportation quota he was referring to, but Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has previously said there was a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day.
The ongoing crackdown in the state of Minnesota is the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, according to federal officials, with some 3,000 agents deployed. The surge has prompted daily clashes between activists and immigration officers, and led to the killings of two American citizens by federal agents.
The deadly operation has sparked nationwide protests as well as mass mobilisation efforts and demonstrations in Minnesota.
According to the Columbia Heights Public School District in Minneapolis, Liam was one of at least four students detained by immigration officials in the suburb this month.
Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said ICE agents took the child from a running car in the family’s driveway on January 20, and told him to knock on the door of his home, a tactic that she said amounted to using him as “bait” for other family members.
The government has denied that account, with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claiming that an ICE officer remained with Liam “for the child’s safety” while other officers apprehended his father.
Vice President JD Vance, who has vigorously defended ICE’s tactics in Minnesota, told a news conference that although such arrests were “traumatic” for children, “just because you’re a parent, doesn’t mean that you get complete immunity from law enforcement”.
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