Egyptian family of six taken back into ICE custody days after being released
Hayam El Gamal and five children were held for 10 months after husband allegedly threw molotov cocktails at crowd
An Egyptian family of six has been taken back into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, days after they were released from a detention facility in Texas on Thursday, according to their attorney Eric Lee.
Lee said Saturday morning that Hayam El Gamal and her five children were on a private jet in Denver bound for Egypt because of a court order violation.
“This is a very live situation – an absolutely brazen violation of separation of powers,” Lee said.
On Saturday, the family’s attorneys filed an emergency motion to block the deportation. The US district judge Fred Biery of the western district of Texas, who had ordered the family’s release earlier in the week, granted the motion.
It’s unclear what court order the family was accused of violating. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security could not immediately be reached for comment.
In June 2025, El Gamal was arrested in connection to her then husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman. Federal authorities say Soliman threw molotov cocktails into a crowd at an event drawing awareness to hostages in Gaza. The firebombing attack injured more than a dozen people, including an 82-year-old woman who later died from her wounds. Soliman is facing an attempted murder charge in addition to federal hate crimes.
The El Gamal family’s case has drawn national attention. They had been detained at the much-criticized Dilley detention center for 10 months, a term believed to be the longest of any family during Donald Trump’s second administration. Dilley, a facility in a remote part of Texas near San Antonio, that has been scrutinized following reports of inadequate medical care and rotting or bug-infested food.
Prior to the family’s release, El Gamal’s legal team released a statement saying the facility had denied her and her children proper medical attention. In one medical episode, El Gamal had been experiencing “excruciating pain”. An ER doctor’s recommendation for her to receive an ultrasound was denied.
The lawyers also said her five-year-old child was not able to see a dentist to address 13 cavities and that when her 16-year-old son had acute appendicitis, he was instructed to take Tylenol as a remedy.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the alleged mistreatment.
In July 2025, when a federal court dismissed a lawsuit to release the family, then DHS secretary Kristi Noem hailed the ruling.
“Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE custody for removal as a result,” Noem said then. “We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”
After the arrest, El Gamal filed to divorce Soliman. The pair arrived in the US with their five children in August of 2022, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Later that year, they sought asylum.
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