WASHINGTON: A five-year-old boy whose detention in the Trump administration&#39;s aggressive immigration raids in Minneapolis shocked the world is now back home, a lawmaker said Sunday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who are asylum seekers from Ecuador, on January 20 as the boy arrived home from preschool. Images of the boy with a blue bunny hat and backpack being held by officers whizzed around the world and added fire to public outrage at the federal immigration crackdown, during which agents have shot dead two US citizens. The father and son spent 10 days in a detention center in Texas, hundreds of miles from home, until a judge ordered them freed on Saturday. &quot;Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,&quot; Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro, who accompanied them on the trip from his home state, wrote on X in a post with photos of the child. The Trump administration sought to justify the boy&#39;s detention by arguing that ICE took him into custody after his father tried to flee from immigration agents. During a visit to the detention center last week, Castro said Adrian Conejo Arias described his son as being sad and depressed. &quot;His dad said that he hasn&#39;t been himself,&quot; Castro wrote on X then. US District Judge Fred Biery, who ordered the boy&#39;s release, said in a scathing opinion &quot;the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.&quot; He criticized what he called the government&#39;s apparent &quot;ignorance&quot; of the US Declaration of Independence that &quot;enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation.&quot; Biery also cited the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right against &quot;unreasonable searches and seizures.&quot; After this ruling came out, Castro went to pick up the boy and his father and flew home with them to Minnesota. &quot;We won&#39;t stop until all children and families are home,&quot; Castro wrote.

Americas

US district judge orders boy's release, says in a scathing opinion "the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children."

Five-year-old arrested in ICE raids is back home: lawmaker

Web Desk/AFP

WASHINGTON: A US federal immigration agent shot a man in Minneapolis, city officials said, urging the public to &quot;remain calm&quot; a week after agents shot and killed an American woman in the same city. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O&#39;Hara said the shooting resulted from a struggle in front of a residence between a man and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/who-was-renee-nicole-good-the-woman-killed-by-us-immigration-police" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">ICE</a>) agent on the north side of the city Wednesday evening. &quot;During the struggle, the federal agent discharged his weapon, striking one adult male,&quot; O&#39;Hara told reporters at a press conference. The man suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his leg and was transported to a hospital for treatment, officials said. The shooting marked the second time in a week an ICE agent had shot someone in Minneapolis, with the previous shooting resulting in the death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good on January 7, sparking ongoing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/anger-over-minneapolis-shooting-probe-fuels-protests" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">protests</a>&nbsp;against the presence of federal agents in the northern US city. &quot;We understand there is anger,&quot; officials wrote on the midwestern city&#39;s X account, adding that &quot;the City of Minneapolis again demands that ICE leave the city and the state immediately.&quot; O&#39;Hara said Wednesday&#39;s shooting generated a crowd of protesters around where it happened, with some throwing fireworks at officers. &#39;This is not sustainable&#39; <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/afghan-national-arrested-near-dc-for-isisk-support-homeland-security" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Department of Homeland Security</a>&nbsp;officials confirmed the shooting in a post on X, saying &quot;an illegal alien from Venezuela&quot; was targeted for a traffic stop and resisted arrest. &quot;While the subject and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle,&quot; DHS said. The officer then &quot;fired a defensive shot to defend his life,&quot; hitting the initial subject in the leg. Elected officials in Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota have decried the actions of Department of Homeland Security agents, including those with ICE. &quot;This is not sustainable,&quot; Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters, adding: &quot;We have ICE agents throughout our city and throughout our state who, along with Border Patrol, are creating chaos.&quot; &quot;This is not the path that we should be on right now in America.&quot; In a video posted to social media earlier Wednesday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz decried &quot;the chaos, disruption and trauma the federal government is raining down on our community,&quot; describing door-to-door interrogations by &quot;armed, masked, undertrained&quot; ICE agents. The Democrat said federal immigration authorities have deployed thousands of agents to Minnesota and were carrying out enforcement operations he said are disrupting communities and affecting residents, including US citizens. Walz described the actions as excessive and politically motivated, criticized the federal government&rsquo;s response to a recent death during an operation, and cited the resignation of several federal prosecutors as raising constitutional concerns. He urged residents to protest peacefully, document enforcement activity, and pursue accountability through the courts and elections, while reaffirming Minnesota&rsquo;s commitment to the rule of law and civil rights. Detention reaches record levels According to the Department of Homeland Security&rsquo;s (DHS) 2025 Year in Review, the administration reported more than 622,000 removals from the United States between Jan. 20, 2025, and late 2025. DHS also said more than 2 million people left the country voluntarily under &ldquo;Project Homecoming,&rdquo; which encouraged self-deportation through incentives and a self-reporting feature on the CBP Home app. It also reported a sharp increase in interior enforcement, including more than 10,000 arrests in the Los Angeles area since June 2025 and more than 4,500 arrests during an operation known as &ldquo;Operation Midway Blitz.&rdquo; In Minnesota, DHS said more than 1,360 people were targeted for arrest detainers during &ldquo;Operation Metro Surge,&rdquo; while a separate initiative, &ldquo;Operation Tidal Wave,&rdquo; resulted in 1,100 arrests in six days. DHS reported arrests this month of individuals it identified as suspected gang members and people with prior violent crime convictions. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/b0af2d29-7c8f-44ce-9859-d9c2d15b25ad-deportations.jpg" alt="deportations.jpg" class="fr-fil fr-dib"></figure> Meanwhile, ICE detention data current as of early January 2026 shows the detained population reached a record high of 68,990 people held in 212 facilities nationwide. ICE reported an average of 1,220 arrests per day in December 2025, with the daily rate falling to 315 arrests during the first week of January, which the agency attributed to a seasonal slowdown. ICE said it was monitoring more than 180,000 people through alternatives to detention programs, including a record number using GPS ankle monitors. <img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/f1e21256-56b6-44b7-a02f-9306cc299143-unnamed (1).png" alt="unnamed (1).png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Statistics and Detention Management Reports (2025-2026).</figcaption> Independent analyses from the American Immigration Council said the detention population continued to climb toward 70,000 by mid-January. Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows Texas held the largest number of ICE detainees, with nearly 18,000, followed by Louisiana and California. TRAC also reported ICE expanded its detention network significantly in 2025, using 104 more facilities by the end of the year than at the start, nearly doubling its total capacity.

The shooting comes amid record ICE detentions of nearly 69,000 people, thousands of arrests nationwide, and rising protests in Minnesota.

Articles tagged with "United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)"

Five-year-old arrested in ICE raids is back home: lawmaker

US ICE agent shoots Venezuelan man amid record immigration enforcement