Judge Orders Release of Colorado Attacker Suspect’s Detained Family

A federal judge ordered Hayam El Gamal and her five children released after nearly 10 months in custody at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, a rare break in a case that has become a test of how far immigration detention can stretch when a family is tied to a high-profile attack. The children, who range in age from 5 to 18, had been held since June, longer than any other family under the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery issued the release order on Thursday, April 23, 2026, after a federal magistrate had recommended earlier that week that the family be released under conditions to ensure they would appear in future removal proceedings. The legal fight has not centered on criminal charges against the mother or the children. It has centered on whether immigration custody could be used to keep the family detained while the government sought to remove them, even as the underlying criminal case involved Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who was charged in the fatal antisemitic firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, last June.

The release did not end the dispute. Hours after leaving custody, the family was re-arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday, April 25, 2026. A Texas federal judge then paused their deportation, and a second federal judge in Colorado also said the family should not be deported. The family was reportedly on a flight headed to Michigan, where the government planned to move them quickly before deporting them to Egypt.

The whiplash underscored the deeper issue in the case: how the government is using immigration powers after violent crimes linked to a family member. The family’s attorneys have said El Gamal fears persecution if she is returned to Egypt. After the release order, attorneys said her health was a priority and that she would seek medical attention. NBC News also reported that El Gamal and her oldest child, Habiba Soliman, 18, were required to wear ankle monitors after release.

Eric Lee, one of the family’s attorneys, said he was “thrilled to pieces” by the release ruling and later warned that the attempted removal violated a federal court order and raised basic separation-of-powers concerns. Christopher Godshall-Bennett said, “children should not be in jail.” A Homeland Security spokesperson took the opposite view, saying the judge wanted to release “this terrorist’s family” onto American streets and that the department would keep fighting to remove them. With two judges now blocking deportation, the case has become a stark example of the clash between executive enforcement power and judicial limits in immigration detention.