Trump administration moves to deport 5-year-old as appeals court greenlights indefinite detention without bond

If you still don’t believe we’ve somehow relocated into an alternate dystopian timeline where common sense is nowhere to be found and fascism is making a comeback despite centuries of history warning us against it, then just take this little nugget of American exceptionalism to brighten your Sunday: The U.S. government is trying to deport a 5-year-old, because, and I quote, there’s nothing wrong with “enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.”

While federal judges across the country have been swatting down Donald Trump’s attempt to maintain detention centers that would make even the Nazis blush, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals broke ranks this Friday by handing Trump officials sweeping authority to lock up immigrants indefinitely without bond hearings.

That’s right. The ruling essentially reverses nearly three decades of precedent under both Republican and Democratic administrations, allowing DHS to detain anyone who entered the country illegally, without any opportunity to argue that they pose no danger.

The timing couldn’t be more pointed. Just days after a federal judge in Texas ordered the release of Liam Conejo, a 5-year-old kindergartener who spent 10 days locked up for the crime of returning home from preschool, the administration filed motions to expedite the family’s deportation.

Now the government wants him back. The family’s lawyer calls it “retaliatory,” but DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin insists it’s just “standard procedure” and that there’s “nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.” The government is now seeking to deport Liam and his father, per Reuters, despite protests sweeping through Texas in support of the Ecuadorean family.

As for the new ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the decision as “a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn.”

The practical effect? In Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi—states under the 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction and home to the country’s largest concentration of detention centers—immigrants who previously qualified for bond while their cases wound through the system now face indefinite lockup.

If you ask Trump and the cronies in his inner circle, this is all just standard procedure to “make America safe again,” though it’s as of yet unclear how all the violence perpetrated by ICE over the past couple of months—resulting in the deaths of several Americans and civil unrest in numerous cities—has contributed to this supposed safety.

Welcome to America 2026: where we’re making the country safe again, one traumatized preschooler at a time.