Judge halts deportation proceedings for wife and kids of Colorado terror suspect
A U.S. judge has blocked the deportation of the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the man accused of carrying out the horrific firebombing attack on a group of pro-Israeli demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado.
District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher issued an order to halt the deportation proceedings against Soliman’s wife and five children on Wednesday.
“The court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must issue without notice due to the urgency this situation presents,” Gallagher wrote in the order.
It comes after the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Tuesday that the family had been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and entered into proceedings for “expedited removal.”
It’s unclear whether there is any recent precedent for entire families being placed into deportation proceedings for the alleged crimes of their relative. Immigration attorneys and advocates also have questioned whether it is legal to subject them to fast-tracked removal proceedings without a court hearing.
The “expedited removal” process, which was created in 1996, generally allows immigration authorities to swiftly remove people from the country without a hearing before a judge in immigration court. It has historically been used for proceedings at the U.S.-Mexico border but has been expanded under the Trump administration.
In January, the president signed an executive order that subjects any undocumented immigrants anywhere in the United States who cannot prove they have lived in the country for at least two years to those fast-tracked removal proceedings.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued to block the measure, arguing people seeking asylum “would get less due process contesting their deportation than they would contesting a traffic ticket.”
“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, lead counsel for Soliman’s family.
“The Trump administration’s vindictive attack on this young family echoes the methods of Nazi Germany, where authorities used kin punishment—Sippenhaft—to intimidate the population. 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.”
“To punish the family of someone accused of a crime offends not just United States law, but the concept of justice itself,” added counsel Chris Godshall-Bennett. “We cannot accept the collective punishment of anyone, let alone four-year-old children. The darkest days of American history were characterized by just this sort of association-based internment. If the government can do this, it can do anything.”
It was previously reported that Soliman, an Egyptian national, was living in the U.S. illegally, having arrived in the country using an expired visa. He was later granted work authorization lasting until March 2025.
It is unclear what his family’s immigration status is.
On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that her agency is investigating the “extent” to which the family had known about his intentions in advance of Sunday’s atrocity, though the family members have not been charged in the attack.
Soliman faces federal hate crime charges and 16 state charges of attempted murder, following the incident on Sunday, which left 15 people and a dog injured.
Using a “makeshift flamethrower” and two Molotov cocktails, Soliman targeted a “Run For Their Lives” event, which was attended by peaceful demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas since October 7, 2023.
Noem has promised that he will be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law.”
On Tuesday evening, the White House official account posted a callous message aimed at Soliman’s family, complete with an airplane emoji, that read: “Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon.”
Additional reporting by Alex Woodward.
