ICE Detains, Tries to Deport Family It Had Just Released

A Colorado mother and her five kids spent Saturday in a legal and literal holding pattern: detained by ICE, put on a plane out of the country, then flown back after two federal judges intervened, NPR reports. The family of Mohammed Soliman—accused firebombing a pro-Israel rally in Boulder last year—were released Thursday after 10 months in a Texas immigration facility (the longest detention of a family during President Trump's administration, NBC News reports) after a judge ordered their freedom and barred their deportation. But at a required ICE check-in in Colorado two days later, lawyers say agents re-detained the family, told them they were being removed to Egypt, and put them on a jet despite the standing court order.

Attorneys scrambled to four federal courts; emergency rulings from judges in Texas and Colorado again blocked deportation, and the plane reportedly turned around mid-flight and returned the family to Denver. A DHS spokesperson, without confirming the re-detention, labeled Soliman "a terrorist" and criticized the "activist judge" who freed his family, claiming they'd had full due process and was issued a final removal order. The family denies any role in Soliman's alleged attack, which killed one person, and Hayam El Gamal divorced Soliman after his arrest, CBS News reports. The family originally applied for asylum after arriving in the US from Egypt on tourist visas in 2022, and El Gamal and the children submitted a second asylum application while detained. The first had been denied after the June attack.