By Zoe Sottile, Elizabeth Wolfe and Ed Lavandera, CNN
Photo: AP / Alex Brandon
A federal judge has ordered the release of five-year-old Liam Conejos Ramos and his father from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, according to a ruling obtained by CNN.
Liam and his father were taken by immigration agents from his snowy suburban Minneapolis driveway and sent 1300 miles (2100km) to a Texas detention facility designed to detain families. They have been detained for more than a week.
The order specifies the preschooler and his father be released "as soon as practicable" and no later than Tuesday as their immigration case proceeds through the court system. The ruling, shared with CNN by the judge's courtroom deputy, was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.
In a scathing opinion, which at times read more like a civics lesson, US District Judge Fred Biery admonished "the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence" and quoted Thomas Jefferson's grievances against "a would-be authoritarian king," saying tod
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