Tensions are boiling over in Ohio as immigration authorities continue to detain Imam Ayman Soliman, a former Cincinnati Children’s Hospital chaplain whose asylum status was revoked last month.
More than a dozen demonstrators have been arrested at vigils organized since the imam’s July 9 arrest during a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Anger flared again when the Egyptian native was not released after a July 22 bond hearing.
Imam Ayman Soliman
“Soliman is a faith leader who fled Egypt after being tortured for reporting on the pro-democracy movement. He was in the United States lawfully,” said the Muslim Legal Fund, one of the legal groups that helped convince a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order barring his removal from Ohio during immigration proceedings.
The man known as “the Interfaith Imam” came to the U.S. in 2014, was granted asylum four years later and has been in process of seeking citizenship, according to the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “His work has earned him the love and admiration of hospital staff, parents, patients and community members. Hundreds have shown up for Ayman in his time of need.”
U.S. attorneys claim Soliman should be deported because he once wrote for an organization allegedly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Franchel Daniel
“The government’s tortured attempt at six degrees of separation fails to connect Ayman to any terrorist organization or activity, and an appropriate analysis of the evidence will show that,” said Franchel Daniel, an attorney with the Muslim Legal Fund.
Soliman’s challenges come just as the U.S. Justice Department directed ICE to deny bond hearings to all immigrants as their removal proceedings continue, the Washington Post reported. The directive follows recent congressional passage of a budget bill that included $45 billion to detain immigrants for civil deportation actions and to increase the detention capacity to 100,000 people a day.
Separately, a class-action lawsuit has been filed to prevent the Department of Homeland Security and DOJ from continuing to arrest, detain and quickly deport undocumented migrants who appear for scheduled immigration court hearings.
The action was filed July 16 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of 12 plaintiffs represented by Democracy Forward, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Service.
“All of the plaintiffs appeared at their hearings intending to request protection or other legal status in the United States, only to have a government attorney unexpectedly ask the immigration judge to dismiss their cases,” Democracy Forward explained. “When a judge agreed to the dismissal, often over plaintiffs’ objections, the plaintiffs were arrested and detained by DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who were waiting at the courthouse.”
Some of the plaintiffs have been in the U.S. for several years and are now separated from loved ones. Others are more recent arrivals who fled violence in their native countries.
“DHS has instructed ICE officers to arrest individuals even when an immigration judge declines to immediately grant dismissal or an individual seeks to appeal the dismissal, disregarding both the judges’ authority and statutory law requiring that individuals have an opportunity for a full removal hearing to determine whether they should be admitted or deported,” Democracy Forward said.
“We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration.”
One of the plaintiffs was deported to Ecuador after being arrested in an asylum hearing called to describe the persecution he endured advocating for LGBTQ rights. All but two remain in custody and in fear of being sent to Cuba, Venezuela or Republic of Guinea.
Keren Zwick
“We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration,” said Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “People who attend their hearings to seek permission to remain in this country and comply with U.S. immigration law are being rounded up and abruptly ripped from their families, homes and livelihoods.”
The administration’s actions are weaponizing immigration courts in an effort to discourage participation in the system, added Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman.
“People seeking refuge, safety or relief should not be arrested, detained and deported without a chance to be heard and given due process,” she said. “We are in court to defend the rule of law, stop this abuse of power and ensure that justice and not political agendas guide the immigration system.”
But to widen the deportation campaign even further, the federal agency responsible for issuing green cards and work permits has significantly increased its immigration enforcement activities, Bloomberg Law reported.
Since President Trump took office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has enabled the arrest of undocumented immigrants and helped place expired work visa holders and thousands of others into the deportation process.
One policy analyst said immigrants paying for agency services are encountering enforcement policies arrayed against them, according to the Bloomberg report. “‘This administration is using that revenue to crackdown on its own customers, essentially.’”