Lawyers for Ecuadorian asylum seekers speculate the Trump administration is seeking “retaliatory” action.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reveals it will continue to seek deportation of 5-year-old child liam bunny ramos and his father, Adrian Cornejo Arias, recently returned to Minnesota.

However, the department denies it is seeking to expedite their deportation, as the family’s lawyers claim.

“These are routine deportation proceedings,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Friday. “This is standard procedure and there will be no retaliation in enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.”

Cornejo Ramos’ case has attracted national attention since he was first detained on January 20.

The photo went viral: Cornejo Ramos, wearing floppy blue bunny ears, standing in the snow as an immigration officer grabbed his Spider-Man backpack.

Officials with the Columbia Heights Public School District in Minnesota accused immigration officials of using the preschool student as “bait” for his father. Meanwhile, DHS claims the father abandoned the child when he was contacted by immigration authorities.

Each side denies the other’s account of the January 20 arrest.

Since December, President Donald Trump’s administration has led an immigration crackdown in Minnesota known as Operation Metro Surge. At the height of the operation, as many as 3,000 agents were deployed to the state.

But bystander videos and photos have raised questions about the heavy-handed tactics used, particularly in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.

In the last month alone, two U.S. citizens were shot to death by immigration officials: Renee Nicole Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24.

Outcry over the shooting deaths, along with other reports of violence against bystanders and warrantless arrests, prompted the Trump administration to announce this week the withdrawal of nearly 700 immigration agents.

The detention of Cornejo Ramos and his father was one of the high-profile flashpoints during the crackdown.

The five-year-old and his father were detained as they were returning home from kindergarten. They were quickly transported from Minnesota to Dilley, Texas, where they were held in an immigration processing center while Trump officials sought their deportation.

But on January 27, Judge Fred Biery ruled that the two should be released when they challenged the eviction.

“All they seek is a modicum of due process and the rule of law,” Beery wrote in his brief but pointed decision.

Cornejo Ramos and his father arrived in the United States from Ecuador. Their legal team said the pair entered the country legally and were undergoing asylum proceedings when they were detained.

Attorney Danielle Moliver told Minnesota Public Radio this week that the Department of Homeland Security had filed documents to expedite the father and son’s deportation, speculating that the move was “retaliatory.”

“As a lawyer, it’s really frustrating because they keep putting new obstacles in our path,” she told the public broadcaster. “There is absolutely no reason to speed up this process.”