Barney Davis
Published February 1, 2026 4:46pm
Updated February 1, 2026 8:04pm
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Liam Ramos and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. (Picture: Joaquin Castro)
A five-year-old boy detained by ICE has finally been allowed to return home.
Liam Ramos and his cute hat quickly went viral after he was held by immigration agents as he returned home from nursery last month.
Wearing a bright blue bunny hat with a Spider-Man backpack strapped to his shoulders and a terrified look on his face, the photo made headlines around the world.
‘I’m happy to finally be going home,’ Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador, told ABC News as the pair flew from San Antonio back to Minneapolis.
‘Liam is very happy to be going back,’ he added.
‘He’s going to see his mom and his brother again.’
Liam was reunited with his hat as he poses with family (Picture: Joaquin Castro)
His release was confirmed by Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, who has been visiting him at the Dilley Detention Center, said on X: Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released.
‘I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.
‘Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack. Thank you to everyone who demanded freedom for Liam.
‘We won’t stop until all children and families are home.’
Liam is home now and we are grateful to @JoaquinCastrotx for traveling to Minneapolis with him and his dad. Welcome home Liam ❤️❤️ https://t.co/nqza20kLkv pic.twitter.com/EPr0sLJo9g
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 1, 2026
Neighbours and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as ‘bait’ by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer.
The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an ‘abject lie.’ It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
Mr Arias said that when he was detained, he was walking a few feet ahead of his son, trying to alert people who ‘would come out who could help’.
‘I love my son too much. I would never abandon him,’ he said.
Liam and his dad Adrian make their way through security (Picture: Joaquin Castro)
In the order releasing Liam and his father, a judge said the case ‘has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatising children.’
‘Observing human behaviour 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,’ the judge wrote.
‘And the rule of law be damned.’
Castro also wrote a letter to Liam while they were on the plane to Minnesota, in which he told the young boy was told he has ‘moved the world.’
‘Your family, school and many strangers said prayers for you and offered whatever they could do to see you back home,’ Castro wrote on social media.
‘Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t your home. America became the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth because of immigrants not in spite of them.’
In a social media post, Senator Amy Klobuchar welcomed the boy back to Minnesota, saying he ‘should be in school and with family — not in detention,’ adding, ‘Now ICE needs to leave.’
When were Liam and his father detained?
Liam and his dad, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on February 20.
Video obtained by CBS News shows the boy being taken from the driveway after just arriving home from preschool.
Bystanders screamed and honked their horns as Liam was marched out by an agent holding his Spider-Man backpack.
School bosses and Trump administration officials have offered conflicting accounts of the arrest made in snow-covered Columbia Heights.
@metroukProtestors are gathering outside Dilley detention facility, where Liam Ramos is being held. Congressman Joaquin Castro visited the five-year-old and said: ‘Liam said that he misses his classmates and his family and wants to be back at school.’ ‘He keeps asking about that hat and that backpack that are in the picture. I think they took that from him.’ #texasnews #dilleytexas #viralpicture
♬ original sound – Metro – Metro
US Vice President JD Vance insisted that ICE agents were left with no other choice but to detain the boy.
He told reporters: ‘What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death?
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‘Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?’
Liam and Adrian were taken more than 1,300 miles south to an immigration detention centre in Dilley, Texas.
Vance claimed the boy was taken by agents because his father fled the scene.
He said: ‘The five-year-old was not arrested … his dad was an illegal alien and when they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran.’
Arrow MORE: ICE says immigrant with smashed face and skull ‘ran headfirst into a wall’
Arrow MORE: US shutdown: 50 states rise up over eight deaths and ‘bait’ arrest of boy, 5
Arrow MORE: Former CNN host Don Lemon declares ‘I will not be silenced’ after release from custody
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