Judge orders deportation of 5‑year‑old Liam Ramos and family

An immigration judge has ruled that the asylum claim of 5‑year‑old Columbia Heights resident Liam Conejo Ramos and his family is insufficient and ordered them removed from the United States, a case that became a flash point during DHS’s Operation Metro Surge after a photo of Liam in ICE custody went viral. Family attorney Danielle Oxendine Molliver says they have already filed notice of appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, with an April 7 deadline for the filing and an April 28 deadline for the government’s response, but warns that recent rule changes have made appeals faster, more stringent and less favorable to immigrants. Liam and his father were seized by ICE in January in the family’s Columbia Heights driveway just after he got home from preschool; the local superintendent says agents refused to leave the child with another adult in the home and instead used him to knock on the door, effectively as 'bait,' before flying father and son to a Texas detention facility and later releasing them back to Minnesota. If the appeal fails, the family will be deported to Ecuador despite earlier criticism from Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and federal judges over surge‑era arrests of children near schools and homes in the Twin Cities. The case now stands as one of the clearest examples of how the Metro Surge has moved from viral images and political statements to final removal orders for metro families, with little public transparency about how many similar cases are being rushed through the system.