A federal judge in Colorado on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting the wife and children of the Egyptian man charged with attacking an event honoring Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo.
Judge Gordon P. Gallagher of the U.S. District Court in Colorado wrote that the administration “shall not remove” the woman, Hayem El Gamal, and her five children from the United States until further rulings in the case, adding that deportation could cause “irreparable harm.” He set hearings in the case for next week.
Ms. El Gamal is the wife of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian man accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at the crowd in Boulder on Sunday. She was arrested on Tuesday along with her five children by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
The White House indicated on social media on Tuesday that the family could be deported imminently, and the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday, before the judge’s order, that ICE was “processing Soliman’s family members for removal proceedings from the U.S.”
Lawyers representing the family had filed a lawsuit seeking to release them from custody and block their deportation earlier on Wednesday.
The lawsuit was filed by Ms. El Gamal’s immigration lawyers and others seeking to help the family. The suit says that Ms. El Gamal and her children entered the United States on tourist visas in 2022. The children are between 4 and 17 years old, according to the lawsuit.
The filing said that Ms. El Gamal “was shocked to learn” that her husband “was arrested for having committed a violent act against a peaceful gathering of individuals commemorating Israeli hostages.”
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said her agency would be investigating what the family knew about the attack before it happened.
“Today the Department of Homeland Security and ICE are taking the family of suspected Boulder, Colo., terrorist and illegal alien Mohamed Soliman into ICE custody,” Ms. Noem said on social media on Tuesday.
The filing on Wednesday said Ms. El Gamal was a network engineer who had lived in Colorado Springs for nearly three years and had applied for a U.S. work visa. Her husband, Mr. Soliman, also entered the country in 2022 with a tourist visa and quickly applied for asylum. His visa expired in early 2023, U.S. officials said, but he overstayed it.
The lawsuit says that the family is part of his asylum application and that it is pending. It also includes emails that Ms. El Gamal purportedly sent to her immigration lawyer on Tuesday, the day she was arrested.
“Hi please call urgently Florence Colorado ice office,” one email reads.
Eric Lee, one of the lawyers representing Ms. El Gamal, said the family was being detained at a family detention center in Texas.
The lawsuit requests that a federal judge order the release of Ms. El Gamal and her family.
“Punishing individuals for the alleged actions of their relatives is a feature of premodern justice systems or police state dictatorships, not democracies,” Mr. Lee said in an interview. “The detention and attempted removal of this family is an assault on core democratic principles and should provoke widespread opposition in the population, immigrant and nonimmigrant alike.”
Stephanie Saul contributed reporting.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
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