Attorneys for the Trump administration are aiming to deport Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old boy whose photograph wearing a bunny hat in snowy Minneapolis circulated globally after his detention last month by federal officials during the aggressive anti-immigration crackdown there.

The child, Liam returned home to Minnesota earlier this week after being taken into custody alongside his father last month and transferred to a notorious family detention facility in Texas.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Friday it is seeking a deportation order for the Ecuadorian boy.

But the department has denied that it is seeking to expedite his and his father’s removal from the US after a lawyer for the family characterized the government’s action as such to the New York Times.

The lawyer, Danielle Molliver, described the move to the newspaper as “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory”.

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who both entered the US legally as asylum applicants, were ordered released from detention on 31 January. The government is seeking to end the family’s asylum claims, MPR News reported.

Democratic members of Congress Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Joaquin Castro of Texas have been advocating on the family’s behalf.

The DHS issued a statement via assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin, which was also sent to the Guardian in response to a request for comment.

“These are regular removal proceedings. They are not in expedited removal. This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws,” she said.

Castro, who escorted Liam and his father back to Minnesota last weekend, wrote on X that the Trump administration was “trying to take” the child again.

“Liam Ramos, 5, spent ten days in a Texas trailer prison. He got sick, missed his mother and school, and was afraid of the guards. Millions prayed, spoke up, and offered to do whatever they could to see him go home,” he posted.

“But now, the Trump administration is trying to take him again,” Castro continued. “They are breaking legal precedent in an attempt to break this boy’s spirit and all of the Americans who are praying for him.”

Lawyers for the Ramos family declined to discuss details of the case and said in an email to the Guardian: “We will make our case before the immigration court, challenging any erroneous decisions, and ensure that the US immigration law works for our clients.”

Liam’s detention has become the latest prime example of the Trump administration’s escalation of detaining minors. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) booked about 3,800 minors into immigrant family detention from January to October 2025, including children as young as one or two years old, according to a Guardian analysis of records obtained by the Deportation Data Project.

More than 2,600 of those minors were apprehended by ICE officers, which usually means they were apprehended somewhere inside the country rather than at the border.

Reuters contributed reporting