ICE continues to hold Ohio cleric. His defenders say the government's claims are bogus

Yahoo

4 days ago

Ayman Soliman, the former Muslim chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital whom federal authorities are trying to deport on what his lawyers are saying is a trumped-up basis. (Photo courtesy of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance.)
The Trump administration is continuing its efforts to deport an Ohio cleric using what the cleric's defenders say is a shifting, false rationale.
Meanwhile, Covington, Ky., authorities are walking back some of their charges against two journalists after police there violently ended a July 17 protest against the cleric's detention.
Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian national, continues to be held in Butler County Jail after being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on July 9.
Under pressure from President Donald Trump to make 3,000 immigration-related arrests a day, officials accused Soliman of providing 'material support' to terrorists in Egypt more than a decade ago.
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Soliman was beaten and tortured by Egypt's totalitarian government after he worked with western journalists during the Arab Spring uprising, his lawyers said.
He later served as a Muslim chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital after coming to the United States in 2014 and seeking asylum. It was granted in 2018, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
That asylum was suddenly revoked on June 3 over supposed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the United States has not designated a terrorist group.
After the cancellation of a July 3 hearing in immigration court on Soliman's loss of asylum status, ICE arrested him on July 9 and took him to Butler County Jail in Hamilton.
To stop ICE from whisking the 51-year-old out of the country, U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett on July 15 issued a temporary restraining order keeping Soliman in Ohio. On Thursday, Barrett extended the order at least until July 30.
After a bail hearing before an immigration judge on Tuesday, Soliman's legal team accused the Trump administration of a blatant bait-and-switch as it tried to deport their client.
Robert Ratliff, Soliman's attorney, said that the original 'charge of removability' — the basis the government gave to deport Soliman — was material support of terrorism.
Now it's stopped making the claim for that purpose. But it's still making it to argue that the immigration court judge doesn't have jurisdiction to release Soliman on bail, Ratliff said.
If the immigration judge doesn't have jurisdiction to grant bail, no one does, the attorney said.
'The amended charges no longer make that (support-of-terrorism) accusation,' Ratliff said during the press conference. 'The government, however, is still holding to that accusation for purposes of jurisdiction in the bond case.'
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Immigration judges are not part of the judiciary. Instead, they're appointed by the U.S. Justice Department, and thus part of the same branch of government as the agency that Trump tasked with deporting millions.
Immigrant advocates say the arrangement is inherently unjust.
However that may be, an immigration judge in Cleveland delayed a decision on Soliman's bond until July 29 because government lawyers made a lengthy new filing just before Tuesday's hearing.
There wasn't much in it that was new, Ratliff said. And the government is again using academic articles to 'support' its claims even though their authors say the articles they wrote do not, he added.
'The extensive brief that (the government) filed today — some 140 pages about an hour or so before the hearing — contains some of the same articles that were previously cited by the asylum officer in his decision (to remove Soliman) — articles about which we submitted letters from the authors of those articles who dispute the findings of the asylum officer, that dispute the fact that their articles were used in this way, and dispute the suppositions the government came to citing their articles.'
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment on the matter.
But Franchel Daniel, an attorney with the Muslim Legal Fund of America, said the Trump administration is looking for any excuse to deport Soliman, who has broad community support in Cincinnati.
'The fact that the government would raise these types of allegations against him is just ludicrous,' she said. 'They continue to make unfounded allegations, and they haven't given any support whatsoever. It's been a massive game of six degrees of separation — how can we connect you to somebody so we can connect them to something else?'
Egyptian police arrested Soliman over his work as a journalist during the Arab Spring more than a decade ago. Then Covington, Ky., police arrested two Cincinnati reporters last week as they covered a protest of Soliman's detention.
CityBeat reporter Madeline Fening and photo intern Lucas Griffith were arrested as they covered about 100 protesters who marched from a vigil for Soliman in Cincinnati and across the John A. Roebling Bridge into Kentucky. Protesters marched in the travel lanes, obstructing traffic.
The two journalists and 13 others were swept up in arrests that began about 20 seconds after police gave the order to disburse, the Enquirer reported. Fening and Griffith were charged with felony rioting even though videos posted online seem to show only police engaging in violence.
One officer repeatedly punched a protester about the head as another took the man to the ground and handcuffed him. The protester did not appear to be resisting.
'As previously stated, the officer in question was placed on administrative duty and we have opened an extensive investigation regarding our agency's response to the unlawful disturbance on the Roebling Bridge,' a spokesman for the Covington Police Department said in an email. 'We hold our officers to the highest standard. If any misconduct is identified, it will be addressed.'
The spokesman didn't respond to questions about the felony arrest of the two journalists. Prosecutors dropped the felony charges Wednesday, but Fening and Griffith are still accused of misdemeanors.
While Covington police won't explain why they arrested journalists in the protest, Children's Hospital isn't addressing claims by two of its chaplains who said they were fired for speaking out on Soliman's behalf. The Enquirer reported the claims on Thursday.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the hospital said in an email, 'We don't comment on current or former personnel.' The spokesperson didn't respond immediately when asked whether Children's Hospital believed chaplains' public speech regarding the controversial deportation of a former chaplain who is an asylee is merely a personnel issue.
As the furor grows over the attempted deportation of Soliman, his attorney said much more than his fate is at stake.
If Soliman can be deported on makeshift claims that he supported the Muslim Brotherhood, authorities can make similar claims against any asylee, Ratliff said.
'The procedures in this case, the procedures used by (the Department of Homeland Security) are broader than one group, one man, one entity,' he said. 'If this policy, this procedure, is allowed to stand, anybody who fled any of the violence in Central or South America can now find themselves charged under the same (material-support accusation) for something in those countries as routine as paying extortion demands or paying war tax or things of that nature. So this is a process that if it's successful in this case… it can be used to revoke any immigration visa.'
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