A 10-year-old girl from the same suburban Minneapolis school district as Liam Conejo Ramos has been released from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, an attorney assisting the family said.
Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano and her mother, Rosa, were released Tuesday evening and are now at a shelter in Laredo, Texas, attorney Bobby Painter told CNN on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear when the mother and child would return to Minnesota.
Elizabeth was the first student from Columbia Heights Public Schools to be detained by federal agents and sent to Texas, the school district said.
On the morning of January 6, Elizabeth “was taken by ICE agents on her way to one of our elementary schools with her mother,” Columbia Heights Public Schools said.
“During the arrest, the child called her father to tell him the ICE agents were bringing her to school. The father immediately came to the school to find that both his daughter and wife had been taken.”
In a statement to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security said Elizabeth’s mother “is an illegal alien from Ecuador with a final order of removal — meaning she was given full due process.”
“Officers conducted a vehicle stop to arrest the illegal alien. Upon discovering a child was in the car, officers allowed her to make phone calls to place the child in the custody of someone she designated,” DHS said. “She failed to find a trusted adult to care for the child, so officers kept the family together for the welfare of the child.”
Painter, the attorney, said Elizabeth’s family appealed its removal order shortly after it was issued late last year and has followed all proper protocols, including attending every required hearing. The case remains under appeal, Painter said.
Since Elizabeth’s detainment, at least five other students from her school district have also been taken by federal agents and sent to the Dilley family detention center, a spokesperson for Columbia Heights Public Schools said.