Liam “Conejo” Ramos
Liam Conejo Ramos is five years old, small enough to disappear inside a winter coat, old enough to carry a Spiderman backpack and believe that home is wherever his parents are. On a cold morning in Minnesota, he stood in his own driveway while masked federal agents gathered around him and his father. Neighbors watched from the street. School officials arrived. His mother, pregnant and frightened, stayed inside as voices rose and someone begged that the child be left behind. Within minutes, Liam was placed into a dark vehicle and later onto a plane bound for a family detention center in Texas, more than a thousand miles from the classroom he had just begun to know.
His parents had come from Ecuador seeking asylum, according to their attorney, attending hearings and waiting for their claims to be heard. Federal officials described his father differently, but what no statement can soften is the image of a five year old taken from his driveway. His uncle calls him the most playful in the family, a bright presence who fills both the room and the heart. In Texas, his father said Liam grew quiet and stopped eating well, the weight of confusion settling over him in a place meant for confinement rather than childhood.
After protests, visits from lawmakers, and a judge’s order declaring their detention unconstitutional, Liam returned home wearing the same blue knit hat with bunny ears and carrying the same backpack. The legal arguments will continue, but what remains is the memory of that winter morning and the fragile line between an ordinary childhood and the machinery of enforcement.
For the clearest detail and strongest finished piece, I recommend using cardstock and a cutting machine. Cardstock provides the stability needed to hold the fine lines and structure of the design. You can download the image directly from this site or access the full set on the Cricut website under the What Remains Collection. These templates are free to use for personal and community projects, but they may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.
To download the PNG file, click on the image to the left, open a new page and right click to save on to your computer. Alternately, you can visit the collection page on the Cricut website for all the files here.