Video proves Delta flew Liam Ramos and his dad to ICE detention center

Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were flown to a Texas detention center via Delta Air Lines the day after they were captured by federal agents who allegedly used the 5-year-old boy as bait, according to airport surveillance video obtained by an activist and shared here for the first time.

Delta had previously declined to confirm its involvement in transferring father and son to the detention center, even as it was eager to promote viral videos of their return flight, also on Delta, following their release nearly two weeks later. A spokesman for Delta declined to say how frequently it is helping ICE.

Nick Benson, the MN50501 activist and aviation enthusiast who obtained the footage via a public-records request, said he suspects Delta has been transporting other migrant children and families captured in Minnesota, since the airline runs the only non-stop flights between Minneapolis and San Antonio – the major city nearest to the notorious South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley – and he hadn't seen any children on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights he monitors.

Emilia Gonzales Avalos, executive director of Unidos MN, said confirmation that Delta was helping ICE during its occupation of the region was a betrayal to the Latino community, which has relied on the airline for years to visit family in Mexico, Central and South America.

“It’s appalling that an airline that has built a brand on integrity, multiculturism and high standards has complied with this type of enforcement,” Gonzales Avalos said. “I think they’re going to lose a lot of business in the Latino community.”

“The trauma of being taken from your family doesn’t lessen because you’re walking through the normal capitalist society,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said in a statement. “We view the actions against migrant children to be immoral and reprehensible.”

The video shows Liam and his father, Adrián Conejo Arias, accompanied by what appear to be three plainclothes federal agents, walking up to a gate at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on the morning of Jan. 21. Two of the agents, a man in a blue shirt and a woman dressed in black, walk with father and son to a corner of the seating area, away from other passengers. Conejo Arias appears sit on an end table with his son nearby. In the beginning of the footage, Liam is wearing the same black-and-white coat he wore in photos of his capture a day earlier, though he is not wearing the famous bunny hat.

A third federal agent, a woman in a white shirt and brown pants, walks up to the counter and speaks with the gate agent. The woman in black then approaches the counter and hands the gate agent what appears to be a passport or a badge. Shortly after, the man in the blue shirt approaches the counter, appears to show the gate agent identification and gestures toward Liam and his dad while discussing something with the gate agent for several minutes.

Later, all five of them stand in line with other passengers, who do not appear to notice anything out of the ordinary, to board the aircraft. The federal agent in the white shirt holds Liam’s hand while Conejo Arias stands behind them, Liam’s Spider-Man backpack slung over his shoulder. The other two agents stand behind Conejo Arias.

When the agent in the white shirt lets go of Liam’s hand to give a Delta employee their tickets, Conejo Arias moves closer to his son, who leans into him affectionately. Father and son hold hands as they walk toward the jet bridge to board the flight surrounded by the federal agents.

Benson said he was glad to see that Liam is not visibly distressed in the video, but he couldn’t help putting himself in Conejo Arias’s shoes, as a fellow father. “What a weird, horrible, terrible situation that is, where you’re there with all these people who are just on vacation or traveling for work, and you know that the government is doing you wrong here, and there’s just nothing you can do,” he said.

A representative for Delta did not answer directly when asked if it works with ICE. The representative said most federal government air travel is booked through third parties, and airlines do not have advance notice or detail about the purpose of federal employee air travel. It is unclear which airlines other than Delta may currently allow ICE detainee transfers onto their flights or how frequently this could be happening nationwide.

Gonzales Avalos with Unidos MN said she wasn’t buying Delta’s explanation. “There’s no way that you can hide that at boarding,” she said. “I think the usage of a third party to book this flight might have a strategic design to protect their corporate interests.”

Benson said he can understand how Delta management may have thought that by allowing ICE agents to bring captured children and families onto their planes, they were providing a more humane alternative to putting them on ICE’s shadowy network of charter planes, where adults – and occasionally children – are shackled, and ICE-contracted guards tightly control movement and can be abusive.

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But, he said, “now with understanding that due process has been abandoned, that probable cause norms are no longer a thing, and with the plain and clear knowledge that what was happening was wrong, and you’re participating in a process, you’re making money off a process, that is illegal and immoral? When do you put your foot down and say ‘We can’t be doing this?’”

Migrant children and their families should not be detained at all, he said.

“You’re putting employees in an impossible position, where they’re not in any position of power to do anything about this, where they’re enabling this heinous activity to take place, or they don’t have food to put on their family’s table anymore,” he said.

Most of Delta’s employees are not unionized, Benson noted, “and I think the fact that there wasn’t any whistle-blowing that this was happening is probably a testament to that.”

Last summer, in a Reddit forum for flight attendants, a “disgusted” poster described gate agents for their airline being told to remove passengers from planes “so that ICE could arrest them on the jet bridge.” The poster did not name their airline, but commenters said they knew it was Delta and shared other incidents of Delta helping ICE.

In 2018, at the urging of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, all major airlines including Delta barred the federal government from using their planes to transport migrant children who had been separated from their families by the first Trump administration. This followed a flight attendant’s viral social media post describing 16 “scared” children in ICE custody being flown cross-country on a red-eye flight. At the time, the airlines claimed to have no knowledge of how or if their flights were being used to transport children in ICE custody – similar to the lack of knowledge Delta is claiming now.

Most airlines transported people in ICE custody in the past, though it was rare, according to AFA-CWA. The union said it may be happening now on other airlines without the crew’s knowledge. “At a very minimum, we believe airlines must demand notice, then must advise crew, and must ensure they are not helping the government violate constitutional rights,” the union said.

Liam and his father’s case sparked public outcry in January after officials at Liam’s school said ICE agents used him as bait in an attempt to capture other people. A widely shared image showed the boy standing in the cold outside, wearing a bunny hat, the hands of a black-clad agent holding onto his Spider-man backpack.

The Department of Homeland Security denied using Liam as bait, falsely claiming his father had “abandoned” him, when in fact they had just arrested his father. DHS also falsely claimed federal agents kept Liam warm, despite photos and video from the scene clearly showing him being prevented from going anywhere. School officials later said Conejo Arias was shouting to his pregnant wife inside their home not to open the door for fear she would also be arrested, and that agents refused to release Liam to a school board member at the scene who was authorized to take him.

The family are originally from Ecuador and entered the US legally as asylum-seekers in 2024, their attorney said in January. The attorney did not respond to a request for comment about the video.

Conejo Arias and Liam were detained for nearly two weeks, during which Liam contracted an illness. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who visited them in Dilley, posted a picture of Conejo Arias cradling his sick child. They were released on Jan. 31 after a judge ruled their “cruel” detention violated constitutional protections.

Father and son’s return flight on Feb. 1, also on Delta, became something of a media free-for-all, with the airline allowing an ABC News crew onboard the flight. Correspondent John Quiñones posted photos to social media showing him seated next to a visibly tired Conejo Arias. Video showing Delta pilots giving Liam a tour of the flight deck soon went viral, with dozens of commenters thanking the airline for its humanity.

The representative for Delta who declined to say if Delta was contracting with ICE also highlighted the coverage of the return flight.

The Dilley detention center is the largest ICE facility holding children and families. It was closed during the Biden administration but reopened when President Trump began his second term. Rep. Castro told the New York Times that when he first visited in January, there were 1,100 people detained there. Last week, there were 450.

“The public outcry is making a difference,” he told the Times.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly called Delta Air Lines “Delta Airlines.”

Thank you for reading. I am a former Washington Post staff writer and, as far as I know, the only journalist in America covering ICE flights full time. I am committed to keeping this reporting non-paywalled, but if you are able, please sign up for a paid subscription or send me a one-time tip, so I can continue this important work. –Gillian