Family under longest immigration detention of Trump’s term released | US immigration

A woman and her five children, whose immigration detention of more than 10 months marked the longest family detention under Donald Trump’s second administration, were released on Thursday hours after a judge’s order, their lawyer said.

US district judge Fred Biery of the western district of Texas ordered the family’s release.

Hayam El Gamal and her five children aged five to 18 were taken into federal custody last June after last year’s firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, over which her ex-husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was charged. An 82-year-old woman who was injured in that attack later died.

“The El Gamal family is free,” Eric Lee, a lawyer for the family detained in Texas, said in a statement.

El Gamal and Habiba Soliman, 18, the eldest child, will have to wear ankle monitors. The family had been detained at the highly controversial Dilley detention center in a remote part of Texas south-west of San Antonio.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is a part, criticized the ruling that ordered the family’s release, saying it came from an “activist judge” who was “releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets”.

Mohamed Soliman was arrested over the attack on a gathering that commemorated Israeli hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza after the 7 October 2023 attack. El Gamal divorced Soliman after his arrest, NBC News reported. She also condemned the attack.

The family’s legal team said they had no advance knowledge of the suspect’s plans and that the family was detained unlawfully. The government said federal agents were investigating “to what extent” the family knew about the attack.

The legal team also said the family’s health deteriorated during their detention and alleged they were denied appropriate medical care.

Lee, the family’s lawyer, said El Gamal was taken this month to an off-site emergency room after she “began experiencing excruciating pain” and that she received a CT scan which showed she had “fluid around the heart”. The legal team said all five of her children were suffering from depression.

The DHS said the family received medical care and due process.