Judge temporarily halts deportation of Boulder suspect's family
June 4 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the deportation of family members of the Egyptian national charged in the anti-Semitic attack in Boulder, Colo.
In the U.S. District Court in Denver, Judge Gordon P. Gallagher directed the federal government to stop the deportation proceedings of Mohamed Soliman's 41-year-old wife, Hayem El Gamal, and their five children.
On Tuesday, they were taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Florence, Colo., about 40 miles from their home in Colorado Springs. Federal immigration records show they are being held at a federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, designed to house families with minors, CBS News reported.
The White House posted Tuesday on X: "THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT."
"Defendants SHALL NOT REMOVE" the five undocumented migrants from Colorado or the United States "unless or until this Court or the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit vacates this order," Gallagher wrote in his order.
"Moreover, the Court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must (be) issue(d) without notice due to the urgency this situation presents."
He set a hearing for June 13 for a request on a temporary restraining order.
The Washington Post reported the family was held "incommunicado and without access to a lawyer" after they were placed in ICE custody on Tuesday, their lawyers said in court records.
By applying for asylum, the Trump administration can't legally speed up their deportation, the legal representative said.
"Punishing individuals - including children as young as four-years-old - for the purported actions of their relatives is a feature of medieval justice systems or police state dictatorships, not democracies," family attorney Eric Lee said Wednesday in a statement to CNN. "The detention and attempted removal of this family is an assault on core democratic principles and must provoke widespread opposition in the population, immigrant and non-immigrant alike."
In the court filing obtained by The New York Times, the suspect's wife "was shocked to learn" that her husband "was arrested for having committed a violent act against a peaceful gathering of individuals commemorating Israeli hostages."
After his arrest, Soliman told detectives "no one" knew about his attack plans," including his wife or children, according to the affidavit for his arrest filed Sunday.
"We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it. I am continuing to pray for the victims of this attack and their families. Justice will be served," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X on Tuesday.
The children are an 18-year-old daughter, two girls and two boys.
They are Egyptian citizens, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
El Gamal, 41, is a network engineer with a pending EB-2 visa for professionals with advanced degrees.
The eldest daughter, identified as Habiba Soliman, recently graduated from high school in Colorado Springs. An article in the Colorado Springs Gazette on April 25 said she had won a scholarship and planned to study medicine.
In August 2022, they were initially granted entry until February 2023, DHS said in a Wednesday statement. Soliman applied for asylum in September 2022 in Denver, the agency said.
In 2023, Soliman received a two-year work authorization that expired in March, a DHS official told CNN.
Authorities say Soliman yelled "Free Palestine" and used a flamethrower to ignite molotov cocktails and threw them into the crowd where a pro-Israeli group, Run for Their Lives, was seeking the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
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