Outrage was sparked when 5-year old Liam Ramos was detained on Jan. 20 along with his father, Conejo Arias, by ICE agents in Minnesota. The two were then sent to a detention facility in Texas, where they awaited deportation back to Ecuador. The two quickly became the subject of intense controversy, given Ramos’ age, with protests erupting outside the detention facility in which they were being held. After the intervention of a federal judge, the two were released and arrived back home in Minnesota on Sunday. It was widely acknowledged that the father and son posed no risk, and had followed all protocols in their attempts to seek asylum in the country upon their entry from Ecuador in 2024.
There are conflicting reports as to how the detention occurred, and whether or not ICE meant to seize the son along with the father. But what is most notable is the ruling delivered by Judge Fred Biery on Jan. 31 demanding the release of the two. Biery’s feisty comments and references to the U.S. Declaration of Independence indicates a degree of determination that is being stirred up in response to the brutal and inhumane tactics that have been so outrageously displayed by ICE. Below are excerpts of Judge Biery’s ruling:
“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apparently even if it requires traumatizing children… Apparent also is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. Among others were: 1. ‘He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People.’ 2. ‘He has excited domestic Insurrection among us.’ 3. ‘For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us.’ 4. ‘He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislatures.’
“‘We the people’ are hearing echoes of that history.”
“…Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse… 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. And the rule of law be damned.”
Biery notes that petitioners for asylum in the U.S. like Arias and his son Ramos may still be forced to return home, either involuntarily or by self-deportation, “But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”
Biery then concludes, writing: “Philadelphia, September 17, 1787: ‘Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?’ ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’ With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike, It is so ORDERED.”
