A federal judge in San Antonio has ordered immigration officials to immediately halt any transfer or removal of a detained father and his young son while their emergency court challenge proceeds.
In a court order signed Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said “any possible or anticipated removal or transfer” of Adrian Conejo Arias and the child, identified in the case as L.C.R., is stayed until further order. The judge also barred officials from moving them outside the Western District of Texas during the litigation.
The order says both petitioners are being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas. Biery directed the clerk to serve the filings on the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio and on the Dilley facility’s warden, and gave the government five days after service to respond. The petitioners may reply within seven days after the government response is filed.
The child has been publicly identified as Liam Conejo Ramos, 5. A photo released by Columbia Heights Public Schools showing a small boy being escorted during the detention spread widely and prompted anger in the Twin Cities.
The case was filed as an emergency habeas corpus petition, along with a motion seeking an order to show cause and an emergency request for immediate injunctive relief.
In a related directive, the judge told the government that if the dispute turns on which federal detention authority applies, it must address a string of recent San Antonio Division orders that examined the same question — including Vega-Vega v. Bondi and Gonzalez-Gomez v. Bondi — and explain any meaningful factual differences.
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