Liam Tadeo was supposed to start kindergarten this week. Instead, the five-year-old is being held at the Dilley family detention center in Texas after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him and his father, Victor Martinez Nieto, during a traffic stop in Austin on August 16.

"My son is only five years old; he was supposed to start kindergarten this week, and instead he is being held in an immigration detention center. He should be in school, playing soccer and at home with his family," Liam's mother said, according to a statement shared by FWD.us.

ICE confirms Martinez Nieto was deported once before and later returned, and says he and Liam will remain together in custody while his case moves forward. Keeping a father and son together is the right instinct, but it doesn't require a locked facility. Families facing deportation proceedings can be placed in community-based alternatives to detention while their cases are heard, letting children stay with their families outside a facility built to hold adults.

This isn't the first young child named Liam to end up at Dilley, and advocates have raised concerns about the facility before. Every time a five-year-old spends his first weeks of the school year behind a fence instead of in a classroom, the same question deserves an answer: why isn't a community-based option being used instead?

Liam should be learning his letters and playing soccer with his friends, not sitting in a detention center. Sign the petition calling on ICE to release Liam and his father to a community-based alternative to detention while his case is reviewed, before another child loses his first weeks of kindergarten to a cell instead of a classroom.