https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/31/judge-ice-minnesota-deportations-00758970
Judge orders release of 5-year-old detained by ICE in Minnesota
The judge accused the Trump administration of inhumanity in its approach to deportations.
People protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in downtown Minneapolis on Jan. 25, 2026. | Adam Gray/AP
A federal judge on Saturday ordered the immediate release of Adrian Conejo Arias and his 5-year-old son Liam, whose apprehension by federal authorities — captured in a viral photo — became a symbol of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation surge in Minnesota.
District Judge Fred Biery appended the famous picture to a blistering three-page ruling that accused the Trump administration of vast lawlessness and inhumanity in its deportation push. And the judge took aim at President Donald Trump himself, seemingly comparing the president to a “would-be authoritarian king” that the nation’s founders warned against.
“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,” Biery, a 78-year-old Clinton appointee based in Texas, wrote in the three-page ruling. “And the rule of law be damned.”
The Trump administration’s mass deportation push has led to a long string of judicial rebukes around the country, particularly as immigration authorities have sought to arrest large numbers of people while their deportation proceedings are playing out. Hundreds of judges have rejected that widespread detention effort multiple times in recent months.
And federal judges in Minnesota — where the Trump administration has deployed thousands of federal agents for an enforcement surge — have described violations of court orders at a massive scale.
Watch: The Conversation
Biery concluded that only a “judicial finger in the dike” had been protecting the nation.
The judge had a role in the case because of ICE’s move to quickly transfer Liam and his father to Texas after they were detained. Last week, the judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep the two in Texas while the case was proceeding. Now, he is requiring the administration to release them by Feb. 3.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department have accused judges of being “rogue” and “activist” in their rejection of the administration’s tactics.
A DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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