The wife and five children of the Boulder firebombing suspect are scheduled to appear in court next week following a Colorado Federal Judge’s order to temporarily block the Trump administration from deporting them.
The attack Sunday left 15 people injured. Three are still in the hospital. None of the detained family members have been charged with a crime and police told CPR News on Monday that they are cooperating with investigators. Their immigration status remains unknown.
“This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Department of Homeland Security Sect. Kristi Noem wrote on X. “We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this.”
Advocates have likened the Trump administration’s attempt to deport the family of a suspect to “collective intimidation,” a tactic historically used by authoritarian governments.
“The idea that the Trump administration can impose punishment on family members for the alleged crimes that they did not commit is an assault on the most basic democratic rights of the entire American population,” Eric Lee, the family’s immigration attorney, told CPR News. “Think about what that would mean if this precedent was established. It would mean that children could be held accountable for any kind of offense committed by their parents or other relatives.”
“That’s the type of law that existed in the dark ages and did Nazi Germany when authorities inflicted family punishment to intimidate the population in what they called sippenhaft,” he said.
The suspect arrived on a tourist visa in 2022, then requested asylum to remain and that case is still pending. He was born in Egypt, according to the Associated Press, and moved to Colorado Springs three years ago after living 17 years in Kuwait. Prior to Sunday, he had no criminal record in the U.S., and he was not on the radar of intelligence officials who investigate terrorism, authorities said Monday.
It’s unclear if the family also applied for asylum. If they did, all six of them are technically legally authorized to be present in the country but considered to be “without status.” Asylum applications go to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and cases can take years to be reviewed. ICE detained the family on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, a federal judge blocked their deportation or removal from the District of Colorado, citing it would cause “irreparable harm” to the family. The block will be in place as the family’s deportation case works through the courts.
“Basically, the judge is saying that you can’t just deport them without due process,” Law University of Richmond Professor Carl Tobias told CPR News. “There’s got to be some kind of notice, why you want to deport them, and it has to be justified.”
“The family’s eligibility for bond or to continue with their asylum claims will depend on whether the government believes that they knew or reasonably should have known about (the suspect’s) plan or are otherwise a danger to the security of the United States,” Attorney Bryce Downer of Novo Legal Group told CPR News.
That justification would depend on what the family might have known about the attack, which the Anti-Defamation League has called antisemitic. Gov. Jared Polis called it an “act of terrorism.”
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reformed Judaism which represents Boulder’s Reform Congregation, said regardless of people’s political opinions about the war in Gaza, such violence must be denounced.
“To murder American Jews on the streets of America, whether that’s in D.C. — as in a couple of weeks ago — or in this pedestrian mall in Boulder, that is clear and obviously terrorism,” Jacobs said. “It’s antisemitism, and it has to be condemned. We can get into the nuances of what we think or don’t think about what’s happening in the Middle East. But there’s no gray here. This is an airtight case of antisemitism.”
The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, told investigators that he planned the attack for a year and targeted the Boulder “Run for Their Lives” group because they advertised weekly Sunday walks down Pearl Street. He was looking for what he called “Zionist” groups; “Run for Their Lives” says they are advocating for the release of hostages from around the world. Soliman used Malatov cocktails and a flamethrower against the walkers, ranging from 25 to 88 years old. Eight of the victims are female. Seven are male. One of the victims is a Holocaust survivor.
The suspect is currently being held at the Boulder County Jail on a $10 million cash-only bond. He’s being charged with eight counts of attempted murder after deliberation, eight counts of first degree murder extreme difference, six counts of first degree assault at-risk victim, two counts of first degree assault, two counts of possession of an incendiary device, and 16 counts of possession of incendiary device – criminal attempt. His next court appearance is Thursday afternoon.
The family is due in immigration court Friday, June 13. Tobias did not believe the Trump Administration would deport the family before then, a fear raised after the rapid deportation of a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, earlier this year.
“They would be defying an order of a court and the judge could find them criminally liable or civilly liable for contempt of court,” Tobias said. “I think (Judge Gallagher) would be within his rights and justified to punish them in that situation. You just can’t defy court orders openly like that, especially in this context.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a typo in the charges against Mr. Soliman.
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