U.S. judge temporarily blocks deportation of family of Colorado attack suspect

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By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge in Colorado on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting the wife and five children of the Egyptian man charged in a fire-bomb attack in Boulder, Colorado.

U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Gallagher said in an order that deporting the family members, who include children ages 4 to 17, without adequate process could cause “irreparable harm.”

His ruling, which set a hearing for June 13, came in response to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the family of the Egyptian national charged with tossing gasoline bombs at a pro-Israeli rally in Colorado on Sunday.

The family’s suit, filed in federal court in Colorado, sought to win their release from custody and block their deportation while they seek asylum in the U.S., according to court documents.

The Trump administration said on Tuesday that the family members were arrested and would be deported in a fast-track proceeding known as expedited removal. The family’s lawsuit argued the process was not applicable because they have lived in the U.S. more than two years.

The lawsuit said Hayam El Gamal “was shocked” to learn that her husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was arrested in the Boulder attack on a gathering that commemorated Israeli hostages.

“It is patently unlawful to punish individuals for the crimes of their relatives,” a filing seeking their release said. “Such methods of collective or family punishment (violate) the very foundations of a democratic justice system.” 

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said in an X post that Gallagher, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, was giving “extraordinary preferential treatment to illegal alien foreign terrorists.” 

“The Boulder terrorist is an illegal, his entire family that he imported to America are illegals, and now a Biden Judge is blocking their deportation,” he said. “End the judicial coup.”

Federal officials have said Soliman was in the U.S. illegally after overstaying a tourist visa and had an expired work permit. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said federal agents were “investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack – if they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support for it.”

El Gamal, 41, is an Egyptian national who was born in Saudi Arabia, according to the lawsuit. She and her children entered the U.S. on visitor visas in August 2022 and are dependents under her husband’s still-pending asylum application, the suit said. El Gamal is a network engineer and had applied for a work visa, the filing said.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson; Additional reporting by Ryan Jones and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)