A 5-year-old boy detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wearing his bunny hat and Spiderman backpack, worries all the time about being taken again, his parents said in their first in-person interview since the viral moment.
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were detained in January as they returned home from the child’s preschool. After then spending nearly two weeks in a detention center in Texas, they returned home to Minneapolis, following a federal judge’s order for their release.
The boy’s family told CBS News in a newly released interview Liam constantly worries about ICE detaining him again. When asked what is most scary to him, he said, “la inmigración,” a Spanish term used to describe federal immigration officers.
Liam’s family suggested he was traumatized by the experience and now sees a psychologist regularly.
“My boy is very different,” Liam’s mother, Erika Ramos, said.
“He sees police officers, and he says, ‘It’s ICE, Mommy,'” she said.
Liam’s father is worried that it will take a long time for his boy to heal from his psychological wounds.
“As parents, it worries us a lot that he’s no longer as he was before and we’re worried this could last a long time,” Conejo Arias said.
The Independent has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for comment.
DHS previously said it was conducting a “targeted operation” to arrest Liam’s father on January 20, when he fled, abandoning his child. The agency said an ICE officer stayed with Liam while his father was arrested “for the child’s safety.”
Conejo Arias denied DHS’ account of the arrest, telling CBS News he “never did and never would” abandon his son.
DHS also has claimed Liam’s father is an “illegal alien” from Ecuador who was released into the U.S. under the Biden administration. But the family has reportedly been seeking asylum.
The family’s lawyer, Danielle Molliver, told ABC News last month an immigration judge granted a motion filed by the federal government to terminate the family’s asylum claim. Molliver said she filed an appeal in the case.
Liam and his father’s detention came during a massive wave of immigration enforcement in Minnesota. The Trump administration has since scaled back its efforts in the state after two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
