Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett on Wednesday visited a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father at a Texas federal detention center, in a case that has stirred anger over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and given fuel to Democrats and others who are pushing back against ICE's actions. Castro said the lawmakers met with Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, for about 30 minutes in a courtroom inside the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, near San Antonio, the AP reports. Outside, Texas state police officers confronted protesters who demonstrated in support of the detainees inside, using pepper balls against the crowd.
Liam's father said the boy has been sleeping a lot, asking about his mom and his classmates and saying he wants to go back to school, Castro said. "I would ask President Trump, who himself has grandkids who are of the age of some of the kids we met with today, to think of what it would be like for his grandkids to be behind bars," Castro said during a news conference afterward, at which he and other Democrats called for Liam and other detainees to be released. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took Liam and his father into custody on Jan. 20 in Minneapolis as part of a sweeping operation that has wrenched the city and spawned large protests. A photo of the boy wearing a blue winter hat and a Spider-Man backpack as he was detained has circulated widely.
Castro described the child as "emblematic of the monstrosity of the ICE system and the detention system." Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as "bait" by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security 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. A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary order prohibiting the Trump administration from removing the two from the US as their detention is challenged. Crockett said the children being held said they're not getting an education. "We are supposed to be better than this," she said.