US to Appeal Order Releasing 5-Year-Old Boy Detained in Texas

The US Justice Department is appealing a federal judge’s order earlier this year that required immigration authorities to release a 5-year-old boy whose photo became a symbol of the Trump administration’s hardline policies.

A department lawyer notified US District Judge Fred Biery in a court filing Wednesday that the government will appeal his Jan. 31 decision, which also ordered the release of the boy’s father from immigration detention. The San Antonio-based judge issued a critical ruling at the time denouncing US officials’ “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas.”

The boy, Liam, and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, whose home country is Ecuador, returned to Minnesota from a detention center in Texas after Biery ruled. They’re separately in the process of appealing an immigration judge’s decision denying their asylum claims and ordering them deported, according to Minnesota Public Radio.

Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, is detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after arriving home from preschool in Minneapolis on Jan. 20.

Photographer: Ali Daniels/AP Photo

Danielle Molliver, an attorney representing the family in the immigration proceedings, said the government’s decision to contest Biery’s ruling now was “retaliatory” and “untimely.” She said that written briefs in their asylum appeal are due in April.

A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biery took the unusual step of including in his order a photograph of Liam that had rapidly spread online and in media coverage, showing him as he was being detained wearing a blue animal hat with ears and a Spiderman backpack. The judge cited two Bible passages below the image, one about Jesus welcoming “little children” and one that stated, “Jesus wept.”

“Observing human behavior 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. And the rule of law be damned,” Biery wrote.

The case is Conejo Arias v. Noem, 26-cv-415, US District Court, Western District of Texas (San Antonio).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

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