An Egyptian family of six believed to be the longest detained at the controversial South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, the only federal immigrant facility authorized to hold parents with their children, were released late Thursday following rulings this week by two Texas federal judges.
The Thursday decision by U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio was in response to a ruling Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney. The family's release is a major development in their nearly year-long saga, during which the mother and her five children repeatedly raised alarms for months about the treatment at that facility, including medical neglect, rotting food, impotable water, and disrespect for their Muslim faith. Last week, the family's lawyers said the mother was rushed to the emergency room after months of suffering from an unidentified bump, which she feared may be cancerous due to her family history and possibly heightened by the lack of medical care at the detention center.
In a statement, the family's lawyer, Michigan-based Eric Lee, said that attorneys and the family felt "vindicated" by the federal courts' resounding decision and the family's subsequent release.
Lauren Bis, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a statement late Thursday that "the facts of this case have not changed." She noted that the family's father, from whom the mother and her children have repeatedly said they are estranged, is accused of terrorism. Bis said that the family had received "full due process", an account that has been disputed by their attorneys and in a Houston Chronicle report citing previous judicial decisions.
Bis said in her statement that Biery, whom she described as "an activist judge" and was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1993, is "releasing this terrorist's family onto American streets."
Under Trump, Bis said, her agency "will continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country especially national security threats."
"We are applying the law as written without prejudice," Bis added. " If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period."
Biery on Thursday, along with the magistrate judge earlier this week, appeared to agree with the family's lawyers that the family had been wrongfully detained. Such claims, known as habeas petitions, have escalated in recent months, specifically seeing a dramatic spike in the Western District of Texas overseeing both the Dilley facility and El Paso's Camp East Montana that holds adults.
The El Gamal family, who came to the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2022 and later applied for asylum, has been detained since last June after the father, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was charged with attacking mostly Jewish protesters in Boulder, Colorado, accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at demonstrators supporting Israeli hostages. He allegedly wounded at least 29 people and an 82-year-old woman died from her injuries. The father, who pleaded not guilty, remains in federal custody on more than 100 charges related to the incident.
His wife, who said she met her husband in an arranged marriage when she was young, and her five children, which includes 5-year-old twins, have not been charged with any crimes. They have repeatedly maintained that they did not know about Soliman's plans and had a distant relationship with him. The family has since disavowed the father and is no longer in contact with him, their attorney said, and his wife has filed for divorce.
Nevertheless when the family was detained last June, the White House tweeted, "Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed's Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon."
The family garnered widespread public attention this year after their lawyers shared heartbreaking accounts in the children's own words and drawings of the harm they said they were suffering at Dilley.
"We have been here for nine months. I really miss playing with my toys and my watch," wrote the 9-year-old in accounts first shared with The Texas Tribune. "Please get us out of here."
The 16-year-old wrote, "I have seen with my own eyes, food that has mold in it. I even saw food with actual worms."
He described suffering from appendicitis, writing that he began feeling "severe abdominal pain" one morning and was unable to walk to the medical unit. Hours later, he was brought in a wheel chair to see a nurse who he said told him, "'I can't help you. Go and come back if you still have pain in 3 days.'" He said he threw up and only then was transferred to the emergency room.
Together, the children's accounts offered a bleak view of life inside an immigrant detention facility, which generally is not intended for children. The Trump administration is appealing a decades-old federal court settlement to allow them to detain children, like the El Gamal siblings, for longer than 20 days, which according to the existing agreement is typically the maximum time kids held with their parents can be imprisoned. For more than a decade, medical experts and child advocates have testified about the long-lasting harm suffered by children when they are detained.
Since the El Gamal family spoke out earlier this year, their attorneys said that conditions have deteriorated for them. The eldest sister, who last year was chosen as one of the "best and brightest," students in Colorado and recognized by a picture with the mayor with a scholarship from the local paper, was separated from her mother and youngest siblings after telling reporters about their poor treatment.
Their plight helped renew attention on the conditions at Dilley, which opened in 2014 under former President Barack Obama and has long been plagued with problems. Former President Joe Biden shuttered it in 2021 but President Donald Trump reopened it last year.
The detention center, which has been the focus of mass media coverage and spurred nationwide protests, including in Texas, reentered the public consciousness earlier this year after photos of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a blue hat and Spider-Man backpack, went viral following his January arrest in Minneapolis. He and his father were sent to the Dilley facility, but following widespread public alarm, quickly released while their asylum cases proceeded in the courts.
The majority of families detained at Dilley have not faced that same fate. Instead attorneys said they have suffered as bouts of measles spurred the facility into lockdown. Several children, lawyers and advocates said, have become so disillusioned that they attempted to self-harm.
A 13-year-old friend of the El Gamal family, for example, was deported to Colombia earlier this year after attempting suicide, the family's attorney said. He said he worried every day that one morning he would wake up to learn that one of the El Gamal children had suffered the same outcome.
Instead, they are now on their way back to their friends in Colorado.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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