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Family of Boulder terror attack suspect will face immigration proceedings in Texas
DENVER (KDVR) — The family of the suspect in the June 1 attack on Israeli hostage supporters in Boulder will not be deported at this point, a judge ruled on Thursday, after federal officials began expedited removal proceedings.
The family of 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Farag Soliman was taken into federal custody by U.S. immigration officials on June 3. A temporary restraining order preventing the expedited removal proceedings was issued on June 4, keeping them in the U.S., but confined in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in West Texas.
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The facility is run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The transfer was allegedly made because no Colorado ICE facilities are designed to house families, according to the judge's order.
The Department of Homeland Security said Soliman, his wife and his five children came to the U.S. on Aug. 27, 2022, on a B2 visa and were granted entry until Feb. 26, 2023.
On Sept. 29, 2022, Soliman filed for asylum, listing his wife and five children as dependents, in Denver, and was granted a work authorization in March 2023, but that's also expired now.
Officials have accused Soliman in both federal and state charges of attacking with Molotov cocktails a group from Run for Their Lives as they were peacefully demonstrating while calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Boulder County officials say 15 people were injured in the attack.
The family members have not been charged in the attack.
All are Egyptian citizens. Soliman faces federal hate crime charges and over 100 state charges for attacking the Run for Their Lives group in downtown Boulder.
'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,' said Eric Lee, the family's lead counsel, on June 4.
In court documents filed Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher of the District of Colorado noted that 41-year-old Hayam Salah Alsaid Ahmed El Gamel, Soliman's wife, and her five children reportedly entered the U.S. with B1 visitors visas in 2022. Because they've been in the U.S. uninterrupted for over two years, 'are therefore not subject to expedited removal,' according to the judge.
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The petition provided to the judge also said that El Gamel is a network engineer with a pending EB2 visa, which is given to professionals with advanced degrees. It says that she and her children are also included on Soliman's still-pending asylum application.
'In short, while the Government may make rules in the immigration-detention context that it could not constitutionally apply to United States citizens, and while the Government need not treat all noncitizens alike, due process nevertheless requires the Government to comply with its own laws,' the judge wrote in his order Thursday.
He added that if the government had proceeded with expedited removal processes, El Gamal and her children likely would have had their due process rights violated.
'But the Government is constitutionally obligated to provide due process,' the judge wrote. 'It therefore was and remains necessary to halt immediate deportation until the situation is figured out—to measure twice and cut once.'
The judge ruled that the family must stay in the U.S. while going through immigration proceedings, but that the case will be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, since they are confined there. The injunction will remain in effect through its present 14-day limit, the judge wrote, and the sister court will determine whether the relief is further warranted.
Matthew Barringer, an immigration attorney, told FOX31 earlier this month that the underlying criminal investigation makes this situation different from 'pretty much any other 'garden variety' situation.'
'This very very quick process, it deprives the defendants wife and those children their due process to have their proceedings in front of an immigration judge, and it's a violation because the executive says well we're going to get these people and take them out, well the judicial side says woah woah woah…we need to know what their claim is,' Barringer said.
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He provided some insight into why the federal judge halted removal proceedings.
'It is not typical when someone is the target of a criminal investigation that ICE automatically comes in and arrests and detains family members,' Barringer said. 'To then ship them to a facility in Texas, really in the dead of night, that too is very rare.'
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said shortly after the family's detention that her department is investigating whether or not they had any knowledge of the attack. Soliman, according to an arrest affidavit, told police that he never told his family about his plans to attack the peaceful, weekly demonstration.
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