People hold a photo of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy who was held by immigration officers, during an "ICE Out" protest in New York on January 23, 2026, against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Photo / AFP
People hold a photo of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy who was held by immigration officers, during an "ICE Out" protest in New York on January 23, 2026, against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Photo / AFP
A 5-year-old boy being held in an immigrant detention centre has stopped eating and is asking for his mother, his family have said.
Liam Conejo Ramos was detained alongside his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, outside his family’s home in Columbia Heights, Minneapolis, last week after walking home from school.
The 5-year-old’s detainment prompted widespread outcry, and a row erupted over Immigrations Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics after it was claimed officers used him as “bait” to lure members of his migrant family outside.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied reports that Liam was forced to knock on the door of his family home, and instead insisted that Arias had abandoned the child when officers tried to arrest him.
A photograph of Liam wearing a bunny-eared hat and Spiderman backpack while flanked by a uniformed officer during the incident quickly went viral.
An ICE agent holding onto the backpack of a 5-year-old student at Valley View Elementary, Liam Conejo Ramos, as he is being detained on January 20, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo / AFP
The young boy has since been held up by ICE’s critics as a symbol of the administration’s unsparing immigration crackdown and aggressive tactics. The 5-year-old and his father were detained and transferred to a facility in Texas.
Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, both Democrat representatives from Texas, visited Liam and Arias at the facility in Dilley on Wednesday (local time).
Demanding the child be released, Castro said Liam had been asking for his mother and family, was sleeping a lot and wanted to go back to his school to see his friends.
“He’s asked about his backpack and his cap that he was wearing when they picked him up in Minnesota,” he added at a press conference.
Crockett said that she was “very concerned” about his health after his father said he was not eating. “They had determined that he was depressed,” she told CNN.
Liam’s mother, Erika Ramos, warned that her son’s health was rapidly deteriorating.
“Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality. He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat,” she told Minnesota Public Radio.
Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old student at Valley View Elementary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo / AFP
On Wednesday, a judge blocked the deportation of Liam and his father, who the DHS has characterised as an “illegal alien”.
Neither are US citizens, however both have complied with the legal immigration process, presenting themselves at the border, applying for asylum, and waiting for their cases to be adjudicated, the family’s lawyer said.
Families of those detained in the Texas ICE facility have raised serious complaints about the conditions inside, including contaminated food, limited access to clean drinking water and inadequate medical care.
The DHS has pushed back on some of the allegations. “ICE would NEVER deny any illegal alien medical care,” wrote Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesman.
Minneapolis, gripped by protests and unrest following the killing of two US citizens by federal agents, has become the centre of the national debate over ICE’s apparent overreach.
The killings in the Midwestern city have sparked a national outcry, forcing the Trump administration to reshuffle its immigration leadership and scale back its violent deportation campaign.
Both Democrats and Republicans are concerned about the hostile tactics and lack of federal accountability. Tom Homan, who has taken over immigration enforcement in Minnesota, pledged on Thursday to change course.
“President Trump and I, with others in the administration, have recognised that certain improvements could and should be made. That’s exactly what I’m doing here,” he told reporters.
The Telegraph has contacted the DHS for comment.
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