Officials investigating whether the family is aware of the planned “heinous attacks” of Homeland Security, Christie Noem, says.
Federal US officials detained the family of a man suspected of attacking a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado over the weekend.
In video Tuesday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Christi Noem announced that the family of Egyptian National Mohamed Sabri Soliman has been detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Noem said in the video. “We are investigating how well his family knew about this heinous attack, whether they had knowledge about it, and whether they supported it.”
Police accused the 45-year-old Soliman of throwing Molotov cocktails into a crowd gathered for an event organized by Run for Run, a group seeking the release of Israeli prisoners of war, held in Gaza.
According to the affidavit, Soliman cried out “Free Palestine” while throwing a jammed Cen device.
Firebombs injured 12 people, three of whom remained hospitalized. Police say Soliman has been planning an attack for over a year. He faces accusations of federal hate crimes.
“When he was interviewed about the attack, he said he wanted them all to die, he didn’t regret it and he would do it again,” Colorado’s representative U.S. Attorney General Grewell said at a press conference Monday.
Soliman said he was acting alone and no one else knew his plans. However, an official in charge of US President Donald Trump’s administration said he would investigate whether his wife and five children were aware of the suspect’s intentions.
Administration officials also highlighted the fact that Soliman, an Egyptian citizen, was in the United States on an expired tourist visa, linking his arrest and the arrest of his family to a greater push against undocumented immigrants.
“The United States has zero resistance to foreign visitors who support terrorism,” White House press chief Caroline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.
“Under the Trump administration, foreigners are only recognized by the United States through legal procedures and if they do not pose a hostile attitude towards our citizens, our culture, our government, our institutions, or most importantly our establishment principles.”
Soliman’s family includes a wife and five children. The official White House account of social media platform X has indicated that “we could be deported by tonight.”
“Six one-way tickets for Mohamed’s wife and five children. Final boarding call will be released soon,” read the post on Tuesday.
The attack comes amid growing tensions in the US over Israeli ongoing war in Gaza compared to genocide by UN experts and human rights groups. It also takes place less than two weeks after two Israeli embassy employees were shot outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., after being shot from the fatal shooting.
Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have reported a sharp rise in harassment and violence since the start of the war.
Trump and his allies use anti-Semitism concerns as an excuse to promote hardline immigration policies and crackdowns against pro-Palestinian activists.
“This is another example of why we must keep our borders safe and hire illegal anti-American extremists from our hometown,” Trump said in a social media post Monday.
However, the president and his supporters face allegations that they are leaning towards anti-Semitic rhetoric. And his administration’s push to expel foreigners has brought vigilance among civil liberty groups.
The administration is currently seeking to deport several international students involved in Palestinian activities, including a Turkish graduate student named Rumeysa Ozturk.
Her legal team claims that Oztalk appears to have been arrested for collaborating and signing the matter in pursuit of an end to the war in Gaza. Ozturk was released from immigrant detention in May after a legal challenge, but she continues to face deportation proceedings.
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