Officials deny seeking quick end to asylum claims for the Minneapolis family of 5-year-old
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$1 per week for 24 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $4.00 plus GST every four weeks. After 24 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.99/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal authorities have denied attempting to expedite an end to asylum claims by the family of a 5-year-old boy who was detained with his father during the immigration crackdown that has shaken the Minneapolis area.
Images of Liam Conejo Ramos wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack surrounded by immigration officers stirred outrage over the crackdown.
Danielle Molliver, a lawyer for the boy and his father, told The New York Times that the government was attempting to speed up the deportation proceedings, calling the actions “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory.”
The government denied that.
“These are regular removal proceedings. They are not in expedited removal,” Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, adding “there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.”
Molliver told the Times that an immigration judge, during a closed Friday hearing, gave her additional time to argue the family’s case.
The family is sequestered pending their next hearing this Friday, according to Kristen Stuenkel, spokesperson for Liam’s district, the Columbia Heights Public Schools.
The boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who originally is from Ecuador, were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. A judge ordered them released from a detention facility in Dilley, Texas, and they returned to Minnesota on Feb. 1.
Neighbors and school officials have accused federal immigration officers of using the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would come outside. DHS has called that description of events an “abject lie.” It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
The government said the boy’s father entered the U.S. illegally in December 2024. The family’s lawyer, however, said the father entered legally using the CBP One app and that his pending asylum claim allows him to stay in the U.S.