Judge denies DHS bid to rush removal of Liam Ramos and his family

The Department of Homeland Security unsuccessfully sought to expedite deportation proceedings against the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old formerly detained with his father by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minneapolis, a local school official said Friday.

The government filed a motion Wednesday seeking to end asylum claims for Liam’s family, according to Minnesota Public Radio, which first reported the news Thursday night. MS NOW has not viewed the filing.

At an asylum hearing Friday, the family was granted a continuance, according to Zena Stenvik, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Liam goes to school. Stenvik cited “a legal representative of the family” as the source of the information she shared.

The legal representative said the family expressed thanks for the outpouring of support, asked for prayers, and requested privacy, Stenvik added.

Danielle Molliver, the family’s attorney, told MPR on Thursday that the filing was “retaliatory.” Molliver did not respond to MS NOW’s requests for comment Friday. It is unclear when the family is next due in court.

In a statement to MS NOW on Friday morning, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, denied that the removal proceedings were being “expedited.”

“This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws,” she said.

DHS re-sent the same statement Friday night, when MS NOW asked for a comment in response to the news of the hearing’s outcome.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who visited Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, at the Texas detention facility where the pair had been held, said in a post Friday morning on X that the Trump administration is “breaking legal precedent in an attempt to break this boy’s spirit and all of the Americans who are praying for him.”

The news comes less than a week after a federal judge ordered Liam and his father released from detention. In a brief order issued Saturday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery quoted both the Declaration of Independence and the Bible in his condemnation of the detention. 

Liam and Arias were taken by ICE officers Jan. 20 outside their home in Minneapolis. A photo of the boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack and a blue bunny hat at the scene went viral, drawing national attention to the case. 

A school official claimed that ICE agents detained Liam as he returned home from school with his father, and then used the boy as “bait” to try to lure other adults out from the home as someone inside asked to take custody of the boy and was rejected. 

DHS officials denied that account, claiming in a post on X that Arias had “fled on foot — abandoning his child” as agents approached. DHS described the father as “an illegal alien from Ecuador.” 

Arias told Minnesota Public Radio the family’s future was uncertain.

“The government is moving many pieces. It’s doing everything possible to do us harm, so that they’ll probably deport us,” he said in Spanish, according to MPR’s translation. “We live with that fear, too.”

Stenvik previously told MS NOW four other children from the school district she presides over were in the same Texas detention facility where Liam and his father were. The school district shut down Monday after receiving a bomb threat.

In her latest statement, she said the Friday ruling provides both “additional time” and “continued uncertainty for a child and his family.”

“As educators, we know uncertainty is difficult for students and deeply disruptive to learning and well-being,” Stenvik said. “Our concern remains centered on Liam and all children who deserve stability, safety and the opportunity to be in school without fear.”

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CORRECTION (Feb. 6, 2026, 10:15 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article gave the wrong name of a school official. She is Zena Stenvik, not Kristen Stenvik.