DILLEY, Texas – The family of the Boulder terror attack suspect believes its monthslong detention at an immigration facility in Dilley, Texas is political punishment and says the living conditions are “inhumane”, a family member told KSAT Investigates.
Habiba Soliman, 18, called KSAT reporter Daniela Ibarra earlier this month from the South Texas Family Residential Center, where she’s being held along with her mother and three younger siblings.
“Absolutely terrible,” Soliman said. “There is literally no amount of words that would express all the emotions and all the suffering that we have been enduring for seven months.”
KSAT Investigates has been following the family’s story since last summer.
Soliman’s father, Mohamed Soliman, is charged in connection with the deadly antisemitic terrorist attack last June in Boulder, Colorado.
“I was literally in shock,” Habiba Soliman said, “just because I couldn’t believe that that person was my father.”
Immigration officers detained the family in Colorado shortly after the attack.
Originally from Egypt, the family overstayed their 2022 B-1 visas and had been seeking asylum, according to their immigration attorney Eric Lee.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted about the family’s detainment on X in June.
“We’re also investigating to what extent his family knows about this horrific attack,” Noem said.
“If we had known, we would’ve have stopped them, we would have prevented it,” Habiba Soliman told KSAT Investigates. “What happened to the victims is awful, it’s terrible.”
Lee told KSAT Investigates the FBI has cleared the family of knowing about plans for the attack. Despite that, he said an immigration judge denied the family bond and deemed them a flight risk because they lack community and family ties.
“The vindictiveness with which this administration is pursuing this family is unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before,“ Lee said. ”And I think that eight months at Dilley is punishment enough. It’s time to let these kids go.”
Habiba Soliman described the conditions inside the Dilley facility as “inhumane.”
“The kids literally cry every day because they’re eating the exact same low-quality bad food every single day,” she told KSAT Investigates.
Concerns about living conditions inside the facility had previously been raised in a lawsuit filed last year.
Soliman laid out her concerns in an open letter earlier this month. She noted issues with medical care, including an incident where her brother had to wait days to have his appendicitis properly treated.
“All we were looking for is to work hard, have a community, and that was what we’ve been doing for three years,” she said.
Since KSAT Investigates spoke with Habiba Solimon in early January, Lee said she has been separated from her family inside the detention center. He believes it’s punishment for her speaking out.
KSAT Investigates reached out to the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday to ask why she was separated, as well as a response to her claims about the living conditions.
KSAT also asked the White House for a response to the claim that the family is being detained as punishment.
Neither entity has responded to KSAT’s request for comment as of Wednesday afternoon.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.
Daniela Ibarra and KSAT 12 journalists have been following the Soliman family’s case and conditions at the South Texas Family Residential Center. Read more of our reporting below: