Five-year-old boy detained by ICE on way home from school ‘falls ill’ in detention centre

A five-year-old boy who was detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while going home from school is now 'ill' in the detention centre he's being kept in with his father.

Schoolboy Liam Conejo Ramos was detained by ICE earlier this month along with his dad Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias in Minnesota, and both have been taken to a facility in Texas.

The image of Liam being taken away while wearing a blue bunny ears hat and a Spider-Man backpack went viral, and has become one of the images anti-ICE protesters have placed on banners.

Sadly, his school superintendent Zena Stenvik told the Huffington Post that she spoke to the boy's mother a couple of days ago (27 January) and did not have good news about the child's health.

“Unfortunately, Liam’s health is not doing great right now. He’s been ill. I’ve been told he has a fever. So I’m very, very concerned about his well-being in that facility," she said about the child's wellbeing.

She also said the boy's mum, Erika Ramos, was 'incredibly distraught' by the situation.

Ramos had previously said to Minnesota Public Radio that her son was 'getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality', saying: "He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever, and he no longer wants to eat."

Arias, the boy's father, legally entered the US and had no criminal record, according to the family's attorney Marc Prokosch.

The father and son were visited in the detention centre by Democrat politician Joaquin Castro, who posted a picture online showing Liam asleep in his father's arms.

Castro said that the boy's father had described the five-year-old as 'depressed and sad'.

Just visited with Liam and his father at Dilley detention center. I demanded his release and told him how much his family, his school, and our country loves him and is praying for him. pic.twitter.com/9a2pCuapYd

— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) January 28, 2026

PEOPLE was told by Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at Children's Rights, that conditions within the Texas detention centre during the winter meant that illness was a major issue.

She said that when she went there to speak to people 'pretty much everyone we talked to was sick', while Welch also said that keeping children in a detention centre was 'inhumane and un-American'.

"Some of the conditions of confinement and treatment that we have been monitoring over the many months, include denial of critical medical care," she said, explaining that some families had claimed the food they were given contained mould and worms which was making them sick.

"Families have been threatened with family separation there, and so there's a range of concerns that we've heard over these months."

LADbible has contacted the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.