A small consolation, because – no one talks about it – but there are still many children unjustly detained in the Trump administration’s centers. But the images of Liam’s arrest by police officersImmigration and Customs Enforcementaimed above all at stopping his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Ariasthey went around the world and outraged most people. At least for a few hours.
The fact is that today little Liam Ramos and his father were released from the detention center in Dilley (more than 2 thousand kilometers from their home) also thanks to the pressure of the deputy Joaquin Castro and some Democrats, who fought for the rights of that 5-year-old child.
Liam is very happy to be back, his father, originally from Ecuador, told ABC News. He will see his mother and brother again.
Liam is home now. With hat and backpack.
A federal judge ordered it, establishing that they must be freed “as soon as possible”, while their case continues in the courts. And it is the content of the ordinance that is really striking. In a very harsh sentence, the district judge Fred Biery accuses the government of ignoring even the foundations of American history, citing the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson’s words against an authoritarian power. According to Biery, today “we are hearing the echoes of that same story”.
Liam’s case went around the world especially for that photo that has become a symbol: an ICE agent holding the little boy’s Spider-Man backpack in his hand, while he looks at the camera wearing a hat with bunny ears.
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An image that has rekindled anger against the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and an increasingly urgent question: what happens to children when their parents are suddenly taken away?
Biery doesn’t mince words: the case, he writes, arises from “a poorly conceived and incompetently implemented government policy, obsessed with daily deportation quotas, even when this means traumatizing children.
Observation of human behavior confirms that, for some, the desire for limitless power and the imposition of cruelty know no boundaries. What about the rule of law? Damn that too.
Also under scrutiny are so-called “administrative warrants”, often used by ICE agents to arrest people without a judge’s signature. For Biery they are not constitutional: “it’s like putting the fox to guard the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judiciary”.
The judge recognizes that Liam and his father could still be deported, given the complexity – described as “arcane” – of the US immigration system. But, he underlines, this should happen “through more orderly and humane policies than the current ones”.
The sentence ends with a quote from Benjamin Franklin, dating back to the Constitutional Convention of 1787:
What do we have?
A republic, if you can keep it.
Meanwhile, the fact remains that ICE operations do not only target undocumented people with criminal records, as the government claims, but also legal residents, families and very young children. Liam is the fourth student in his school district to be taken away by officers in just two weeks. And a few days ago, another little girl, still in diapers, was repatriated to Texas with her father before being returned to her mother.
And perhaps this is precisely the point: when a state needs a judge to remind itself that children are not instruments of political deterrence, the problem is not immigration, but empathy that is shattered.
