The Department of Homeland Security has locked down the family detention center where it held 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos after medical staff confirmed two detainees had active measles infections.
DHS said Sunday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had halted “all movement” inside the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley.
Around the same time news of the measles outbreak broke, with the department announcing it was quarantining detainees believed to have had contact with the infected individuals, a federal judge ordered that Liam and his father be released and allowed to fly home to Minnesota.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast ICE’s Health Services Corps was monitoring detainees and taking “appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection,” adding: “All detainees are being provided with proper medical care.”
Immigration lawyers had raised alarms before the DHS statement, warning of a potential outbreak at the facility. Neha Desai, a lawyer for the National Center for Youth Law, said she hoped the measles cases would not be used to “unnecessarily” block lawmakers and attorneys from inspecting Dilley.
“In the meantime, we are deeply concerned for the physical and the mental health of every family detained at Dilley,” Desai told CBS News. “It is important to remember that no family needs to be detained — this is a choice that the administration is making.”
Health officials have warned that measles spreads quickly in congregate settings. Texas last year recorded an outbreak of 762 cases that hospitalized 99 people and killed two children, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
ICE detention has surged past 70,000 people nationwide, according to data obtained by CBS.
The outbreak came two weeks after Liam’s detention sparked a public outcry, becoming one of the most widely condemned cases of Donald Trump’s mass deportation dragnet.
Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, were detained outside their apartment in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, on Jan. 20 after returning from preschool pick-up. School officials said agents had the boy knock on his own front door “in order to see if anyone else was home,” describing the child as “bait.”
DHS denied that allegation.
Heartbreaking photos showed Liam in a bunny-eared hat, standing in the snow with a Spider-Man backpack as masked agents led him away.
It was later claimed that he appeared sick while in custody, with Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett saying after a visit at Dilley: “He was so lethargic. He was never alert the entire time that we were there.”
DHS disputed claims that Liam had been sick.
Over the weekend, a Clinton-appointed federal judge ordered the release of the child and his father. They returned to Minnesota on Sunday, escorted home by Rep. Joaquin Castro.
