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A federal judge in San Antonio ordered the release from immigration custody of Hayam El Gamal and her five children from a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, subject to electronic monitoring requirements, according to an Associated Press report. The decision by U.S. District Judge Fred Biery came Thursday in a case tied to allegations that El Gamal’s husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, carried out a fatal firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, in 2025.
Biery ruled that El Gamal and her oldest child, who is 18, may be released as long as both wear electronic monitoring. The judge denied the government’s request to stay the ruling so it could appeal, and one of the family’s lawyers, Eric Lee, posted on X that the family was released later in the day.
El Gamal was born in Saudi Arabia and is an Egyptian national. The family has been in immigration detention since June, after federal authorities accused Soliman of living in the United States illegally and after prosecutors tied the criminal case to the couple’s immigration circumstances.
Authorities said Soliman is being prosecuted in both state and federal court for the Boulder attack. Prosecutors said he threw two Molotov cocktails at people demonstrating for awareness of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and investigators said the attack injured a total of 13 people. One person injured in the attack, an 82-year-old woman, later died.
The report said investigators concluded Soliman planned the attack for a year and acted with a desire “to kill all Zionist people.” Soliman pleaded not guilty to state charges, including a murder charge, and to federal hate crimes charges.
The government and the family’s lawyers argued over whether the detention and deportation posture was driven by something other than ordinary immigration procedure. After the attack, the report said the Trump administration asserted the family was being rushed out of the country, and the White House posted on social media that they “COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT,” adding that six one-way tickets had been purchased and that a “final boarding call” would come soon.
Biery’s decision also came after an immigration appeals court dismissed the family’s request to stay and issued a deportation order. The report said the judge nonetheless decided to release the family even though the appeals court had ordered their removal, after a federal magistrate judge recommended earlier in the week that they be released following arguments by the family’s attorneys that they had not been treated fairly in immigration proceedings.
El Gamal’s lawyers said they would seek further legal relief to prevent removal while they pursue asylum and permission to remain in the United States. One lawyer, Chris Godshall-Bennett, told Biery that they would ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to stop deportation while their asylum efforts continue.
The Department of Homeland Security response included criticism from acting assistant Homeland Security Secretary Lauren Bis. In a statement, Bis criticized Biery’s ruling, saying that despite “full due process and a final order of removal,” an “activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton” was releasing what Bis called the family of a “terrorist” onto “American streets.” A government lawyer, Anne Marie Cordova, denied the family’s allegation that the deportation order was directed by “political leadership” in Washington.
While the criminal case against Soliman proceeds and the family continues pursuing asylum, the federal order Thursday marks a change from the government’s efforts to remove the family. The AP report said the family had made repeated efforts to be released on bond and to return to Colorado while their asylum application was considered, and it said another federal judge blocked their immediate removal after the attack before Thursday’s ruling.