Additional Coverage:
- ICE re-arrests family of six just hours after judge frees them from 10-month detention (themirror.com)
Federal authorities briefly took an Egyptian family back into custody on Saturday, just days after a federal judge ordered their release from over 10 months of immigration detention, according to the family’s legal team.
Hayam El Gamal and her five children, ranging in age from 5 to 18, were detained less than 48 hours after the court’s release order, their attorney Eric Lee said in a statement. Lee called the incident a “travesty of justice” and urged authorities to stop the family’s removal, emphasizing that ignoring the court’s ruling undermines fundamental legal principles and the separation of powers.
The family had been held at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, the only federal facility authorized to detain parents with their children. They were taken into custody while complying with a mandatory check-in at an ICE office in Denver.
According to their lawyers, ICE placed them on a plane bound for Michigan and then to an undisclosed international destination. However, a federal court granted an emergency motion to halt the deportation.
On Sunday, Lee announced the family’s release, stating their detention was in direct violation of court orders. The Department of Homeland Security declined to address the family’s rearrest specifically but reaffirmed its commitment to removing individuals without legal status, particularly those linked to terrorism.
El Gamal and her children had been detained since June, marking one of the longest family immigration detentions under the previous administration. Their case drew additional attention due to El Gamal’s former husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who was charged with attempted murder, assault, and a federal hate crime related to a firebombing in Boulder, Colorado last year. Authorities investigated whether the family had prior knowledge of the attack, but El Gamal, who divorced Soliman following his arrest, has denied any involvement and condemned the incident publicly.