7/10/2025 – Reposted from huffpost.com
Community members and politicians on Wednesday expressed outrage about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detainment of a former chaplain for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital who sought asylum after being tortured and detained in Egypt for the reporting he did there as a journalist.
The former chaplain, Imam Ayman Soliman, is a native of Egypt who was detained Wednesday after an hours-long check-in with ICE at the Homeland Security Office in Blue Ash, Ohio, his attorneys say. Soliman entered the U.S. legally in 2014 and applied for asylum soon after, Christina Jump, lead counsel for Soliman, told HuffPost. He was granted asylum status in 2018. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revoked his asylum status in June, after telling him in December it intended to do so, Jump noted.
“Mr. Soliman came to the United States seeking refuge from the torture and persecution he suffered in Egypt,” Jump, the head of the civil litigation department at the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), said. “He reported on the totalitarian dictatorship in Egypt at the time of the revolution there. For that, he endured repeated torture and threats to his family. He came to the United States and legally asked for asylum. He proudly worked here, most recently as a chaplain in a children’s hospital, so that he could continue to help others.”
“Ayman Soliman is not a criminal,” Jump added. “Ayman Soliman broke no laws. Ayman Soliman poses no threat.”
Brady, who is the immigration litigation department head at the MLFA, added, “We, along with our coalition of attorneys on the ground in Ohio, are diligently pursuing Ayman’s immediate release from ICE custody and the restoration of his asylum status.”
Organizers, lawmakers and community members gathered for a press conference on Wednesday after his detainment, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. According to the outlet, about 75 people attended.
“We are shocked as a community, who is already vulnerable, who already feels targeted,” Tala Ali, chair of the Clifton Mosque and the Islamic Association of Cincinnati, said at the press conference, according to The Enquirer. “To have one of our leaders and our elders in our community be detained in such fashion is very alarming.”
Ohio state Rep. Karen Brownlee (D) reportedly added that the “system failed” Soliman.
In a post online later on Wednesday, Brownlee called on Congress “to fix our immigration system so that we don’t have to live afraid and, for those who want to be U.S. citizens, that they can live here with the same liberties, the same justice, the same freedoms that we all get.”
Rep. Munira Abdullahi said Soliman provided a “bridge to different faiths, people who don’t always agree, and he’s been that peace,” according to CityBeat. “Not only does he provide healing at the hospital as a chaplain … he also provides healing in the community as a liaison to different groups.”
“This is a man of the community, and this is who ICE is taking away from us,” she continued. “You don’t have to contribute to society, by the way, to be afforded safety. This is not the democracy that America has promised. He came here seeking peace and safety. He’s a political asylum-seeker from Egypt who is facing certain death if he gets returned, so we’re here calling for his release.”
In the years since he arrived in the U.S., Soliman has served as a chaplain at Northwestern University and for the prison system, according to an online biography for the Clifton Mosque, where he also served on the board.
Court records show that Soliman has also filed multiple lawsuits against government entities, including the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center (now known as the Threat Screening Center) after he appeared on a federal watchlist despite not having committed any crimes.
Soliman’s detainment comes as the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids and mass deportations, and, correspondingly, protests and demonstrations have popped up in opposition across the country.
On June 3, ICE set a record high for arrests, taking 2,200 people into custody in just one day. The number is still short of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s goal of 3,000 ICE arrests per day. Trump’s recent signing of his “big, beautiful bill” also gives ICE additional billions of dollars in funding to escalate raids and deportations.
ICE and multiple Ohio state representatives did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital declined to comment.
