A 5-year-old child and his father, who were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Texas last week, have been deported to Mexico, the family’s attorney confirmed to MS NOW on Thursday.
Liam Tadeo and his father, Victor Martinez Nieto, were detained by ICE officers in Austin on Aug. 16 and held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, which houses a majority of children in federal custody. In a video of their arrest that went viral, Liam is crying and holding on to Martinez Nieto’s hands, which are cuffed behind his back, as they are escorted into an ICE vehicle.
Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, the family’s attorney, confirmed to MS NOW that Liam, who is not a U.S. citizen, and his father have since been deported together. Martinez Nieto had asked the Department of Homeland Security to allow his child to stay in the United States with his mother, to no avail.
“Liam should be completing his second week in kindergarten in the United States,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said in a statement. “This case highlights the cruelty of our immigration policies where a young child who has spent more than half of his life in the United States is unnecessarily detained with his father and deported without being able to say goodbye to his mother. None of this was acceptable or necessary.”
DHS said in a statement previously that Martinez Nieto did not have legal status in the U.S. He was arrested by immigration officers in late 2025 and removed to Mexico in February, but re-entered the U.S. at an unspecified time, the department said.
Liam is far from the first — or the youngest — child to have been arrested by ICE officers and held in detention facilities. Research conducted by MS NOW and The Marshall Project shows that at least 500 babies and toddlers have been detained by ICE in President Donald Trump’s second term.
In Dilley, which Trump reopened in 2025 and is now being run by for-profit prison operator CoreCivic, conditions are abysmal, according to detainees.
Many of them, including minors, have been held there for months. ProPublica reported that mothers have said that their children in the facility were so distraught that they spoke of suicide and harmed themselves.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The post 5-year-old detained by ICE with his dad has been deported to Mexico, attorney says appeared first on MS NOW.
