Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained the family of Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, according to US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a video released on Tuesday.
Noem said in the video, “This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” We are looking into whether his family knew about this heinous attack, whether they knew about it, or whether they had provided proof for it.
Soliman, 45, is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a crowd for Run for Their Lives, a movement that demands the release of Israeli prisoners imprisoned in Gaza.
Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” while hurling the incendiary devices, according to an affidavit.
Twelve people were hurt by the firebombs, three of whom are still in critical condition. Soliman has claimed that he planned the attack for more than a year. Federal hate crime charges are pending against him.
He claimed during a press conference on Monday that when he was asked about the attack, that he wanted them all to die, that he had no regrets, and that he would go back and do it again.
Nobody else knew about Soliman’s plans, he claimed, and that he acted alone. However, US President Donald Trump’s administration officials said they would look into whether his wife and five children were aware of the suspect’s intentions.
Officials in the administration have also cited Soliman’s arrest and that of his family as part of a larger campaign against illegal immigration because the Egyptian national was currently residing in the US on an expired tourist visa.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated to reporters on Tuesday that “the United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorism.”
“Aliens will only be admitted into the United States through the legal process and only if they don’t harbor hostile attitudes toward our citizens, our culture, our government, our institutions, or, most importantly, our founding principles,” according to the Trump administration.
A wife and five children make up Soliman’s family. According to the official White House account posted on X social media platform, they “could be deported by tonight.”
“Moses’ Wife and Five Kids: Six One-Way Tickets. Final Boarding Call is soon to be announced, according to Tuesday’s post.
The attack comes as the US is tense over Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, which UN experts and human rights organizations have compared to a genocide. It comes less than two weeks after two Israeli embassy employees were fatally shot inside a Jewish museum in Washington, DC.
Since the start of the war, harassment and violence have increased significantly in both the Jewish and Muslim communities as well as in Arab countries.
Trump and his allies have used anti-Semitism-related concerns as a pretext to push tough immigration laws and a crackdown on pro-Palestine activists.
Trump stated in a Monday social media post that “this is yet another illustration of why we must keep our borders safe and deport illegal, anti-American radicals from our country.”
However, it is claimed that the president and his supporters have a slew of anti-Semitic racial slurs. Civil liberties organizations are concerned about his administration’s efforts to expel foreign nationals.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student, is one of several international students who are engaged in pro-Palestine activities.
