Federal judge orders the release of Adrian Arias and 5-year-old son

Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials must release Adrian Arias and his 5-year-old son, Liam, from detention, a federal district court judge ruled on Saturday.

U.S. District Court of Western Texas Judge Fred Biery Jr. on Saturday granted a writ of habeas corpus petition naming the father and son.

Biery likened his strongly worded ruling to placing a "judicial finger in the constitutional dike."

The petitioners "seek nothing more than some modicum of due process and the rule of law," Biery wrote.

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"The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently, even if it requires traumatizing children," he said.

"This court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported but do so by proper legal procedures," Biery added.

He accused the federal officers of violating the Fourth Amendment via an unlawful search-and-seizure and said only judicial warrants enable them to arrest or detain people when there is no probable cause to do so.

"Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster," he said.

"That is called the fox guarding the henhouse," Biery said. "The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer."

He ordered the federal government to release both from custody no later than Tuesday.

Former President Bill Clinton appointed Biery to the federal bench in 1993.

Federal officers arrested Adrian Arias and detained Liam while enforcing an administrative warrant for the father on Jan. 20 in the Greater Minneapolis area.

The two were transferred to a detention center in Texas, while awaiting deportation.

Liam's mother, Erika Ramos, told media that she watched from a window as ICE officers detained her son and partner.

She said they led her son to the door and knocked while her son asked her to open the door, but she wouldn't because she feared she would be arrested.

"When I didn't open the door, they took Liam to the ICE van," Ramos said, adding that she thought the officers were using her son as "bait."

Ramos said she is pregnant and has another child, whom she feared leaving alone if she had opened the door and was arrested.

Homeland Security officials on Jan. 22 said the ICE officers wanted Ramos to open the door so that they could leave her son with her.

"Our officers made multiple attempts to get the mother inside the house to take custody of her child. Officers even assured her that they would NOT take her into custody.

"She refused to accept custody of the child. The father told officers he wanted the child to remain with him."

They said the officers' primary concern was the child's safety and welfare and that the father is from Ecuador and subject to deportation.