DILLEY: A US Democratic congressman said Wednesday that a five-year-old boy detained with his father by federal immigration agents in Minnesota was “depressed and sad” in a detention facility in Texas.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who are asylum seekers from Ecuador, on January 20.
Images of the pre-schooler wearing a blue bunny hat and backpack being held by officers who were seeking to arrest his father rekindled public outrage at the federal immigration crackdown, during which agents have shot dead two US citizens.
Local school officials said agents used the boy as “bait” to draw his father out of his home.
Texas Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro said Wednesday he spent about 30 minutes with Liam and his father in the detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
“His dad said that he hasn’t been himself, that he’s been sleeping a lot because he’s been depressed and sad,” Castro said in a video posted to X.
He added that Liam was asleep during his visit.
“I am concerned about his mental state,” Castro said.
A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked the deportation of Liam and his father this week, saying that the federal government could not move the pair out of the court’s jurisdiction while they challenge their detention.
“I told everybody very clearly that the country is against what’s going on, that Liam needs to be released, that the country demands his release and that no child that’s five years old should be in detention like that,” Castro said of his visit.
The boy’s family was “legally allowed to come into the United States because they had applied for asylum” through a proper pathway, he added.
About 100 people protested outside the Dilley facility on Wednesday to demand the child’s release and push back against a sweeping immigration crackdown by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Texas state police officers used tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
Castro said he spent about three and a half hours at the facility speaking with parents and families.
“There are no criminals in Dilley,” he said in his video.
“Donald Trump said this was about arresting illegal criminal aliens — that’s his language. There isn’t a single criminal over there.”
Five-year-old detained by ICE ‘depressed and sad’: US congressman
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Five-year-old detained by ICE ‘depressed and sad’: US congressman
- About 100 people protested outside the Dilley facility on Wednesday to demand the child’s release and push back against a sweeping immigration crackdown by the administration of US President Donald Trump
Trump urges Iranian Kurds to attack Iran as war widens
- Azerbaijan preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday
- The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka
DUBAI/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened, with Azerbaijan warning it would retaliate for being targeted by Iranian missiles.
Israel on Friday said it had started a “broad-scale” wave of attacks against infrastructure targets in Tehran, as Gulf cities came under renewed bombardment by Iran.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka where a US submarine sank an Iranian naval ship.
On the possibility of the Iranian Kurdish forces entering Iran, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.”
Two Iranian drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, security sources said.
Iranian Kurdish militias have consulted with the United States in recent days about whether, and how, to attack Iran’s security forces in the western part of the country, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
The Iranian Kurdish coalition of groups based on the Iran-Iraq border in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan has been training to mount such an attack in hopes of weakening the country’s military, as the United States and Israel pound Iranian targets with bombs and missiles. Trump, speaking with Reuters in a telephone interview, also said the United States must have a role in deciding who will be the next leader of Iran after airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week.
“We’re going to have to choose that person along with Iran. We’re going to have to choose that person,” he said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the US was not expanding its military objectives in Iran, despite what Trump said about choosing the country’s next leader.
“There’s no expansion in our objectives. We know exactly what we’re trying to achieve,” he said. The attack on Iran is a major political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern. Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
Azerbaijan prepares to retaliate
Azerbaijan was preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday after it said four Iranian drones crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.
“We will not tolerate this unprovoked act of terror and aggression against Azerbaijan,” President Ilham Aliyev told a meeting of his Security Council.
Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it targeted its neighbor.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5 km (3 miles) of the border between the countries in a message posted on its Telegram channel in Hebrew early on Friday.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said.
Us munitions full
Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East, said during a briefing about operations that the US has enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
The Pentagon earlier this week said the military campaign, known as Operation Epic Fury, is focused on destroying Iran’s offensive missiles, missile production and navy, while not allowing Tehran to have a nuclear weapon.
Cooper said the US had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier that he said was the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier.
He added that B-2 bombers had in the past few hours dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and that bombings were also targeting Iran’s missile production facilities.
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90 percent since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83 percent in that time frame, he said. In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country’s south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
