Judge temporarily blocks deportation of 5-year-old child detained by ICE

A US judge temporarily blocked the deportation of a 5-year-old boy, whose detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last week drew widespread public outrage amid immigration raids in Minneapolis. 

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who are asylum seekers from Ecuador, were arrested on January 20 by ICE agents.

Photographs soon went viral of 5-year-old Liam, wearing a fluffy blue cap and a backpack, being held as he was detained by a federal agent dressed in black. 

"Any possible or anticipated removal or transfer" of the child or his father was prohibited while they contest their detention "until further Order by this court," US District Judge Fred Biery said in a ruling issued Monday in San Antonio, Texas, where the pair are being held. 

The superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools, where Ramos was a preschool student, said the pair was taken from their driveway as they arrived home. 

Ramos was then used as "bait" by officers to draw out those inside his home, superintendent Zena Stenvik added. 

US immigration authorities, however, said that the boy was picked up outside of his home after his father fled the scene. 

The boy's mother and older brother were not arrested at the same time as him and his father. 

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would "de-escalate a little bit" in Minneapolis after the arrival of his border czar Tom Homan, who was dispatched to the northern US city to defuse tensions around ICE raids that have led to the deaths of two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were shot dead by federal agents. 

© Agence France-Presse