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The ICE South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, is seen, Aug. 23, 2019. Eric Gay/AP hide caption
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Eric Gay/AP
On Thursday evening, Hayam El Gamal and her five children were freed after 10 months at an ICE detention center in Texas. That morning, a Texas federal judge had ordered their release. He had also told the government not to deport them.
ICE had been trying to expel them ever since El Gamal's husband, in a high profile case in June 2025, was charged with attempted murder for allegedly throwing molotov cocktails at Colorado protesters who'd gathered in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza – an attack his family said it knew nothing about.
Back home in Colorado on Saturday, two days after their release, El Gamal and her children reported to an ICE office for a required check-in. There, ICE detained them again, told them they were being deported to Egypt, and rushed them onto a plane, their lawyers said.
"They were horrified," one of their lawyers, Chris Godshall-Bennett, said.
It was all done in apparent violation of the Texas judge's orders. Their lawyers rushed to four federal courts on Saturday to try to stop their deportation. In emergency rulings, the Texas judge, Fred Biery, and a second federal judge in Colorado, Nina Wang, again ordered the government not to deport them.
Only then, their lawyers say, did the jet carrying them toward the East Coast turn around mid-flight and deliver El Gamal and her five children back to Denver Saturday night.
"I'm afraid to let them out of my sight," Godshall-Bennett said by phone from Colorado on Sunday, while El Gamal's children played nearby. "They were treated like animals. ICE took children into their custody in violation of a court order and flew them around the country for eight hours. There's a word for that. It's kidnapping. The government's behavior yesterday was entirely beyond the pale."
In a statement to NPR on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security did not confirm that it had re-detained the family. Nor did it address the accusation that it had violated the Texas judge's orders.
"Mohammed Soliman is a terrorist responsible for an anti-Semitic firebombing in Boulder. The family received full due process and was issued a final order of removal on December 29, 2025," Lauren Bis, a DHS spokeswoman, said in the statement. "Despite receiving full due process, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist's family on American streets AGAIN."
Bis also said the Trump administration will continue fighting to deport "terrorists and their associates."
The family first arrived in the U.S. on tourist visas in 2022, and applied for asylum before their visas expired, according to their attorneys. Their application was pending when Soliman was charged in the attack last June. An immigration judge later denied their request for asylum.
After the attack, Soliman was charged with federal hate crimes and state attempted murder charges. He remains in custody. The Trump administration said it would investigate whether his family knew anything about his alleged plans for the attack. But El Gamal was never charged with any crimes related to it. Nor were any of their five children, who range in age from 5 to 18. El Gamal has since divorced Soliman, and the family submitted a second asylum application while in detention.
In a recent interview from the Texas detention center before they were ordered released, El Gamal's oldest daughter, Habiba, described to NPR how her mother's health had deteriorated and the entire family's growing desperation over their 10 months in custody. She called herself "completely broken." She reiterated that the family had no knowledge of her father's plans to attack the protesters in Boulder, and that they had all renounced association with him and stopped using his last name.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, one of their attorneys, told NPR on Sunday he believes the Trump administration's attempt to deport the family is "not about immigration law, it's not about visa overstays. It's about collectively punishing this family for the actions of Mr. Soliman."
He accused the Trump administration of willfully violating the Constitution by disregarding the Texas judge's orders.
"It's pretty black and white in terms of illegal activity," he said, adding: "We have come to expect this absolute lawlessness from the administration. But we should all still be very concerned about it."
The family's lawyers will continue the legal fight to secure their ability to remain in the United States, Godshall-Bennett said.
