Ohio Chaplain Ayman Soliman Freed From Jail as DHS Drops Deportation Case — ProPublica

An Egyptian chaplain whose detention sparked a group uproar and have become a check of counterterrorism powers in immigration courtroom was launched from an Ohio jail on Friday because the Division of Homeland Safety abruptly withdrew its case in opposition to him.

The result is a victory for 51-year-old Ayman Soliman, a preferred Muslim cleric whose a whole bunch of supporters embrace households he endorsed at Cincinnati Kids’s Hospital. The DHS transfer to revive his asylum standing and drop deportation efforts comes after courtroom filings documented errors and inconsistencies within the authorities’s proof portraying him as a terrorist.

Simply earlier than 1 p.m., Soliman walked out of Butler County Jail with a broad smile and a plastic bag containing his belongings, a second filmed by his associates and advocates. He had been scheduled for an immigration trial subsequent week and confronted deportation to Egypt, which he fled in 2014 due to political persecution.

“That is past my goals,” Soliman instructed ProPublica in a name minutes after he was freed. “I’m nonetheless overwhelmed by the shock.”

Soliman’s asylum standing was reinstated and his software for a inexperienced card has been revived, mentioned Robert Ratliff, one among his attorneys. Early Friday, Ratliff had filed paperwork exhibiting wording discrepancies in what ought to have been an identical asylum termination notices to Soliman. One model known as him a “member” of a terrorist group and the opposite accused him of offering unlawful assist to a terrorist group. Soliman has denied each contentions.

The submitting on Friday documented the most recent in a collection of inconsistencies within the authorities’s proof, which ProPublica reported this month.

“From the start, every little thing was flawed,” Ratliff mentioned. “That is definitely a victory for him, and it’s enormous. Sadly, he needed to spend roughly 70 days in jail to get thus far.”

A DHS official mentioned immigration authorities “can’t talk about the main points of particular person immigration circumstances and adjudication choices.” However the official added, “An alien — even with a pending software or lawful standing — isn’t shielded from immigration enforcement motion.” The company is “liable for administering America’s lawful immigration system, making certain the integrity of the immigration course of.”

After leaving the jail, Soliman joined Friday communal prayers at a neighborhood mosque, the place an imam welcomed his launch as a godsend and celebrated his good friend as “a free man, as he at all times needs to be.”

Flanked by supporters at a information convention Friday night, Soliman mentioned he was nonetheless in disbelief that his day had begun in custody. He’d simply come from a restaurant the place he loved “salad and fruit and meat” after weeks of jail meals. He mentioned he was “out of phrases” for the assist system that sprang to his protection. He mentioned he acquired 760 letters whereas in jail from individuals he’d by no means met.

“I’m free immediately due to this advocacy,” Soliman mentioned. “Don’t underestimate your voice.”

Soliman’s ordeal, which spanned two administrations, is extra complicated than most targets of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

After fleeing persecution over his journalistic and protest actions in Egypt, Soliman had been granted asylum in 2018 below the primary Trump administration. Then, within the final month of the presidency of Joe Biden, immigration authorities moved to revoke the standing based mostly on sharply disputed claims of fraud and assist to a terrorist group. As soon as Trump returned to workplace weeks later, courtroom data present, immigration officers bumped up the terrorism claims and formalized the asylum termination on June 3.

DHS had constructed the case on allegations that Soliman’s involvement with an Islamic charity supplied unlawful assist, or “materials assist,” to the Muslim Brotherhood. However neither the charity nor the Brotherhood is a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and an Egyptian courtroom discovered no official ties between the teams.

Materials assist legal guidelines ban virtually any kind of assist to U.S.-designated overseas terrorist teams. Prosecutors describe the legal guidelines as a useful instrument in opposition to would-be attackers, however civil liberties teams have lengthy complained of overreach.

The Biden-era DHS, which first flagged the charity challenge, mentioned it will revoke Soliman’s asylum if “a preponderance of the proof helps termination” after a listening to, based on the December 2024 discover. On the time, courtroom data present, the fabric assist allegation was listed as a secondary concern after extra widespread asylum questions concerning the veracity of official paperwork and Soliman’s claims of persecution in Egypt.

As soon as Trump got here to energy weeks later, Soliman’s attorneys mentioned, the fabric assist claims metastasized, with U.S. authorities declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a Tier III, or undesignated, terrorist group and including new arguments about ties to Hamas. The Brotherhood, a virtually century-old Islamist political motion, renounced violence within the Seventies, although Hamas and different spinoffs are on the U.S. blacklist.

Courtroom filings present DHS attorneys introducing, then withdrawing or amending, supplies to construct a case linking Soliman to the Brotherhood by the charity. Virtually instantly, the proof started unraveling.

Among the many supporting paperwork filed by the federal government have been three educational studies by students with deep data of Islamic charities in Egypt. Soliman’s authorized staff filed statements from all three balking at how DHS had cherry-picked their analysis. The students described “vital errors of reality and interpretation,” “a mischaracterization” and “a dishonest manipulation of my textual content.”

Separate from U.S. makes an attempt to tie Soliman to the Brotherhood was a puzzling footnote during which DHS attorneys alluded to warrants for “homicide and terrorism” in Iraq, a rustic Soliman has by no means visited. DHS acknowledged in courtroom that the road had been an error — after it had been included within the authorities’s profitable argument for holding him in custody.

Authorized students specializing in nationwide safety have been monitoring the case as a gauge of how a lot energy the Trump administration may wield on the intersection of counterterrorism and immigration.

Ratliff mentioned that the win was vital however that he didn’t suppose the result would deter DHS from invoking related arguments in different immigration circumstances, particularly involving cartels, which the Trump administration designated as terrorist organizations, unlocking materials assist powers.

“The connections on this case have been at all times going to be too tenuous to resist scrutiny,” Ratliff mentioned. “I believe, although, that this format remains to be the format we’re going to see DHS take.”

Soliman’s supporters — from spiritual leaders to college college students to oldsters he met on the hospital — welcomed his launch.

“I do know tomorrow he’ll get proper again to the work he does, of caring for his group,” mentioned Lynn Tramonte, govt director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, one of many advocacy teams that pushed for his launch.