On Wednesday, in a vindictive and retaliatory move, the Trump administration filed a motion to prematurely end the asylum claims of the family of Liam Conejo Ramos. The five-year-old boy and his father, who legally entered the United States in 2022 from Ecuador, were kidnapped from their home in Minneapolis last month by the immigration Gestapo and were only returned last week.

In an interview with MPR News, attorney Paschal Nwokocha said the government “was bent on removing this family from the United States.” In a hearing held on Friday, which did not address the asylum claim itself, Nwokocha explained, “We were able to get additional time to do what we need to do in court.”

The attorney did not specify how much time the family was granted to argue its case. For months, the Trump administration has sought to expedite the deportation of asylum seekers and other immigrants by asking judges to “pretermit,” or dismiss, asylum claims without a hearing. The government has argued that immigrants should instead seek asylum in so-called “safe third countries” rather than the United States. In practice, this policy has resulted in thousands of immigrants being deported to countries they have never lived in and to which they have no personal or familial ties.

In the case of Liam’s family, the government may not deport them to Ecuador but instead to a “third country,” where they would be forced to reapply for asylum.

Adrian Conejo Arias, Liam’s father, told MPR News that he does not know what will happen to them. “The government is moving many pieces. It’s doing everything possible to do us harm, so they’ll probably deport us. We live with that fear every day,” he said.

The Trump administration’s attacks on Liam mirror the retaliation it carried out against Kilmar Abrego Garcia last year. The abduction and deportation of the Maryland father, along with more than 250 other immigrants, the vast majority of whom had committed no crimes, to the CECOT prison camp in El Salvador drew widespread attention and sparked mass opposition, expressed in the multi-million-strong “No Kings” demonstrations.

That same wave of outrage followed the release of photographs showing immigration police kidnapping five-year-old Liam and then using him as bait in an attempt to abduct his mother while she was inside their home. These images provoked mass anger in the United States and internationally. Shortly after their seizure by federal agents, Liam and his father were transported more than 1,300 miles (2,092 kilometers) from their home to a so-called “family detention” center in Dilley, Texas, near the US-Mexico border.

Liam’s arrival at the south Texas concentration camp cast a spotlight on the hellish conditions in which hundreds of children and their relatives are forced to languish. Detainees have reported bugs in their food, discolored and undrinkable water, and degrading treatment by guards and staff.

On January 24, the day after the first mass protest in Minneapolis and the same day that VA nurse Alex Pretti was murdered by Customs and Border Protection agents, who have yet to be charged with a crime, detainees inside the Dilley facility held a large protest, chanting “Let us out!” and “Liberty for the kids!”

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Immigration attorney Eric Lee was at the facility and able to document the January 24 protest in real-time. Lee’s footage of the protest and growing awareness of the horrid conditions at the facility provoked another protest at the camp on January 28, this time from community members and residents.

Facing a growing mass movement animated by the call for a general strike to abolish the immigration police and drive the fascists from Washington, the Trump administration released Liam and his father last week, allowing them to return to Minneapolis.

The Trump administration’s renewed attempt to expedite the deportation of Liam and his family further exposes the fraudulent claims that there has been a “draw down” of the federal occupation in Minnesota or any scaling back of the broader “mass deportation operation.” On Monday, Trump’s so-called “border czar” Tom Homan announced the withdrawal of 700 Customs and Border Protection agents from Minnesota, which he claimed was made possible by “unprecedented cooperation” from local law enforcement under the direction of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, both Democrats.

“We currently have an unprecedented number of counties communicating with us now and allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets. Unprecedented cooperation,” Homan said Wednesday.

The federal occupation of Minnesota continues. Some 2,300 federal agents remain in the state, kidnapping and assaulting residents, immigrant and citizen alike, with impunity. Video evidence shows agents smashing car windows, issuing threats, and abducting US citizens who were legally observing and documenting ICE activity.

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That much of the mainstream media has fallen silent on the occupation of Minneapolis is no accident. The corporate media and the Democratic Party are working systematically to suppress coverage, demobilize opposition, and create the illusion that the danger has passed. In reality, the ICE reign of terror continues uninterrupted, and the Trump administration remains actively engaged in efforts to establish a dictatorship.

The assault on immigrants and the right to seek asylum is part of a broader campaign by the ruling class to dismantle all democratic rights. Federal agents are being deployed as Trump’s personal army, developing methods that will inevitably be turned against the working class as a whole and used to suppress political opposition and social unrest on a far greater scale.

Broad layers of the working class are entering into struggle, driven by outrage at state brutality and the intolerable conditions of life under capitalism. This movement has not emerged through appeals from the Democratic Party or the union bureaucracies, but in opposition to them. It is precisely for this reason that both are working to contain it, diverting anger into safe channels such as court appeals, electoral maneuvers, and symbolic protests.

The role of the unions has been especially reactionary. Functioning as an additional layer of management, they have blocked any independent action by workers. Following the murder of Alex Pretti and growing calls for a general strike, the United Auto Workers falsely labeled a mass protest a “general strike” without calling out a single member. Other unions, including CWA Local 7520 and the AFGE, responded by invoking legal technicalities or issuing appeals for “peace and calm,” even in the face of the murder of a rank-and-file member.

Conclusions must be drawn. The working class confronts a highly organized ruling class that is militarizing the state and shredding basic democratic rights. What is required is not faith in the Democrats, appeals to the courts, or reliance on the union apparatus, but the independent organization of the working class itself. Rank-and-file committees must be built in workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools to coordinate resistance to raids, defend immigrants and citizens alike, and prepare collective action on a national and international scale. The logical culmination of this struggle is a general strike, mobilizing the immense social power of the working class against the machinery of repression and the capitalist system that sustains it.