❤️ Liam Is Home—And a Federal Judge Just Called This Cruelty What It Is
“Perfidious lust for unbridled power.” “Imposition of cruelty.” A blistering ruling orders Liam and his dad released.
Liam is home.
A five-year-old boy who never should have been pulled into federal immigration custody is back in Minnesota—safe, with his dad, with his little hat and his backpack, in the only place he belongs: in a normal life.
But today, the real development isn’t just that Liam is home.
It’s that a federal judge looked at what the government did to this child and condemned it as unconstitutional—and called it what so many of us have been screaming into the wind: cruelty used as a tool of power.
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A judge didn’t just order Liam released. He wrote an indictment.
Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered the release of Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, condemning their removal from their suburban Minneapolis neighborhood as unconstitutional.
And the language he used was not polite. It was not “technical.” It was moral.
He condemned what he called “the perfidious lust for unbridled power” and “the imposition of cruelty.”
Family, that’s a federal judge saying out loud what millions of people have felt in their bones watching this administration: this isn’t “enforcement.” This is a power demonstration.
And if you want a single image that captures this whole era, it’s the one the judge himself included in his ruling: Liam—tiny, bundled up, wearing an oversize blue winter hat and a Spider-Man backpack—standing in front of a vehicle as officers took him away.
That photo never should have existed.
But since it does, it will live in the historical record as evidence.
The government’s story vs. the child’s reality
The Trump administration has tried to spin this as if Liam wasn’t “targeted,” as if none of this was their choice.
They claimed the father tried to flee and then wanted Liam to remain with him. A DHS spokesperson even alleged that the child’s mother refused to accept custody.
But school officials in Minnesota described something else: an adult at the home pleaded with agents to let them take care of the child and was refused.
And here is what matters: no federal PR statement can erase what happened to Liam’s body and mind.
A five-year-old was taken from his community and placed in a detention center outside San Antonio.
According to The New York Times, when Democratic lawmakers visited the detention center in Dilley, they said Liam’s father told them the child had been “very depressed” and hadn’t eaten well since being detained.
That’s what cruelty looks like at five years old.
Not a talking point. Not a policy memo. A child who stops eating.
The judge went even deeper: the crackdown itself is lawless
Judge Biery didn’t just scold the government for hurting one family. He attacked the legal machinery behind this surge.
According to the Times, he singled out the use of administrative warrants as violating the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of probable cause.
And here’s the part that should chill you: the Times reported that ICE told officers they can conduct “warrantless arrests” if they suspect someone is undocumented and deem them “likely to escape,” citing an internal memo.
That is a “papers please” regime with guns.
That is exactly how rights collapse: the government trains armed agents to treat suspicion as permission.
And when suspicion becomes permission, the targets are always predictable: the people who look “foreign,” who speak Spanish, who have brown skin, who can’t afford lawyers, who live in communities with less power.
This is why Liam’s case became so explosive. It’s not only about Liam.
It’s about a system daring the public to accept the idea that the government can seize a child and then argue about “custody” while the child’s life is being traumatized.
Minnesota is the warning label
The judge’s order landed in the middle of a larger reality that has been shaking Minnesota.
The flood of immigration enforcement officers into Minneapolis—Operation Metro Surge—has led to mass demonstrations, and, as the Times notes, it has been accompanied by the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Prettiat the hands of federal agents.
So when the judge wrote about “cruelty” and “unbridled power,” he wasn’t writing in a vacuum. He was describing what the country is watching in real time: a federal enforcement posture that is escalating, weaponizing fear, and treating constitutional limits like suggestions.
“Jesus wept.” That line should haunt this government.
According to the Times, at the bottom of the ruling Judge Biery cited two passages from the New Testament—one that quotes Jesus as saying “let the little children come to me,” and another that reads: “Jesus wept.”
I’m not a Christian, but I was for a very long time, and I know exactly why the judge did that.
Because this isn’t only a legal story. It’s a human one.
A child.
A father.
A detention center.
A government insisting it’s normal.
And a judge saying: no. This is not normal. This is not acceptable. This is not constitutional.
The judge compared the government’s tactics to the “swarms of officers” sent by the British king “to harass our people,” drawing from the Declaration of Independence. He wrote that “We the people” are hearing echoes of that history—because that’s what happens when the state starts acting like it owns the public.
Relief is real. Accountability must be next.
So yes—welcome home, Liam.
But I need to say this plainly:
Liam coming home is not enough.
A family endured trauma that should never have been inflicted. A community was shaken. A child stopped eating. A father sat in detention. A judge had to use words like “cruelty” and “unbridled power” to force the government back inside the constitutional lines.
That means the system did not correct itself. The system was forced.
And if we don’t demand accountability, this will keep happening to other children whose names won’t trend, whose photos won’t go viral, whose cases won’t reach a judge willing to write “Jesus wept” into a ruling.
The bigger truth: kids are being used as leverage
This is the part we cannot tiptoe around.
When a government puts a child in the middle of an enforcement action, it is using the child as leverage—whether it admits it or not.
It is sending a message to every immigrant family: we can reach your most precious thing.
That is not “border security.” That is intimidation.
And anyone who claims to love family values, to love children, to love decency, should be outraged regardless of party.
What to do with this moment
Hold onto this: pressure works.
Liam is home because people refused to be quiet—organizers, advocates, school leaders, elected officials, journalists, and ordinary people who said: this is wrong.
Now we have to make sure the next child doesn’t need a federal judge to come home.
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Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun
They’re reunited!!!! Yaaaay! Thank you for sharing!
The wanna-be fuhrer of the Turd Reich!