After ~70 days in jail, Ohio Chaplain Freed as DHS Drops Deportation Case

An Egyptian chaplain named Ayman Soliman, whose arrest had stirred a wave of protest in his community and raised alarm about the reach of counterterrorism power in immigration law, was freed from a jail in Ohio on Friday after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unexpectedly dropped all its charges and restored his asylum status.

For Soliman — now 51 — this is a profound reversal of fortune. He is well known in Cincinnati, in part because he counseled many families at the Children’s Hospital there. His supporters gathered in force, and the decision by DHS to abandon its case marks a clear win for him. The turning point came after his legal team exposed numerous flaws, contradictions, and misstatements in the evidence the government had used to claim he was linked to terrorism.

Shortly before 1 p.m., Soliman walked out of the Butler County Jail. He smiled broadly and carried a plastic bag with his personal effects — a moment captured on video by friends and advocates who had been waiting. He had been due to appear in a deportation trial in the coming days, facing removal to Egypt — the country he fled in 2014 to escape what he says was political persecution.

“This is beyond my dreams,” Soliman told reporters soon after his release. He said he was still reeling from the unexpected development.

His attorneys confirmed that DHS had formally dropped the removal proceedings against him, reinstated his asylum, and revived his application for lawful permanent residency. Robert Ratliff, one of Soliman’s lawyers, presented evidence of major discrepancies in official documents: for instance, two notices that were meant to be identical differed in how they accused him — one accused membership in a terrorist organization, the other alleged providing illegal support. Soliman has denied both charges. The new filings lay out a broader pattern of inconsistency and overreach in how the government constructed its case. Ratliff said, “From the beginning, everything was flawed… This is a huge victory, but he had to spend about 70 days behind bars to get here.”

A DHS representative declined to talk about the specifics of Soliman’s case, citing privacy around immigration adjudications. The representative did emphasize, however, that even immigrants with valid status can face enforcement actions, and the agency is charged with upholding the integrity of the immigration system.

After his release, Soliman attended Friday congregational prayers at a local mosque, where the imam praised his return to freedom and expressed relief that he was once again a “free man, as he always should be.” Later, at a news conference flanked by supporters, Soliman recounted how surreal it felt to begin the day in custody. He said he had just eaten a full meal — “salad and fruit and meat” — for the first time in weeks. He described the overwhelming show of support: while in detention, he said, he had received more than 760 letters from people he did not even know.

“I’m free today thanks to advocacy,” he said, urging people not to underestimate their voice.

Soliman’s ordeal spans across two U.S. political administrations and highlights the fraught intersection of immigration enforcement and national security measures. After he fled Egypt, where he had been a journalist during the Arab Spring, Soliman was granted asylum in 2018. But in late 2024, under the Biden administration, U.S. immigration authorities moved to rescind it, alleging fraud and “material support” to a suspected terrorist network. That effort escalated when Trump returned to office: the government broadened its accusations, pointing to alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and even Hamas.

Yet critics point out key flaws in the government’s approach. The charity organization Soliman was linked to was not designated a U.S. terrorist group, and court documents show that experts whose work the government cited disagreed with the way their analyses had been used. In one bizarre twist, DHS had mentioned warrants for “murder and terrorism” in Iraq in a footnote, even though Soliman had never visited the country — a point the government later admitted was erroneous. Legal and civil liberties scholars had been watching his case closely, seeing it as a test of how far the Trump-era administration might push counterterrorism law in the immigration realm.

Soliman’s legal team and supporters say their victory is narrower than it appears: while he’s freed for now, they worry that DHS may continue to pursue similar tactics in other cases — especially those alleging material support, which can be applied broadly. “The connections in this case were always too weak to survive scrutiny,” Ratliff said. “I don’t think this will stop DHS from trying this approach again.”

In the local community, gratitude and relief swept through. Religious leaders, parents whose children he supported, and immigrant rights groups celebrated his release. “I know tomorrow he’ll go right back to doing the work he does, serving his community,” said Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, which had pushed for his release.

Source: PROPUBLICA