A federal judge on Thursday moved the fight over whether to deport the entire family of the accused Boulder firebomber to Texas because the man’s wife and their five children are in detention there.
The written order came after a hearing planned for Friday in Denver was canceled.
U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher said it was mere minutes that determined where this case would be held: ICE took the whole family, Hayam El Gamal and her five children, from their home in Colorado Springs into a holding facility in Florence on June 3, 2025. This was two days after Gamal’s husband, Mohamad Soliman, allegedly carried more than a dozen Molotov cocktails to Boulder and hurled two of them on peaceful protesters on the Pearl Street Mall.
After being held in Florence, El Gamal and her kids were driven to a Denver airport, flown to San Antonio, Texas and then driven to the Dilley Detention Center, which specializes in holding families, including small children. El Gamal’s attorneys, Neils Frenzen and Eric Lee, filed an emergency petition asking the court for a temporary ban on moving them out of state. It was filed about 45 minutes before the family arrived at Dilley, when they were already in Texas, the judge said on Thursday.
Last week, Gallagher granted that temporary restraining order banning the federal government from deporting the family. He said in his ruling on Thursday that would remain in place, though temporary restraining orders usually expire after 14 days. He slightly altered it to make clear that they are already removed from Colorado, but should not be removed from the U.S. until the order dissolves or a federal judge in Texas addresses it.
“The court has been presented with no evidence to indicate that some sort of shell game is occurring with the current place of confinement,” Gallagher wrote. “Ms. El Gamal and children were moved once, to Texas, and, as far as this Court knows, there they remain.”
Ms. El Gamal, Soliman and their children arrived in the U.S. in 2022 on a tourist visa that has since expired, according to court documents. Soliman had applied for asylum, which would cover the entire family, and that case is still pending. Additionally, El Gamal is a network engineer and has a pending EB-2 visa, available to professionals with advanced degrees, according to court documents.
Immediately following Soliman’s arrest, the White House touted rapidly deporting his family, including a social media post that read, “Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon” with a photo of Soliman’s mug shot taken by authorities.
El Gamal’s attorneys have sought a ban on their deportation back to Egypt on the equal protection clause, noting that the family is only being deported now because of an act allegedly committed by their husband and father.
They also noted Soliman has not been convicted of anything yet and that the family doesn’t qualify for “expedited removal” — which truncates due process in immigration cases — because they’ve been in the country for more than two years.
Lee, the El Gamal attorney, said on Thursday that the ruling was a small victory for El Gamal because it was clear the judge had concerns about the way the federal government has communicated about and treated the due process in their immigration proceedings.
“Obviously the courts have serious concerns about the illegal character of this removal of this young family,” he said. “We think it’s a good sign about where this is going.”
