Federal immigration authorities on Tuesday detained the wife and five children of the suspect accused of burning a dozen people in a terror attack on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in a video posted on social media.
The family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was placed in expedited removal proceedings and “could be deported as early as tonight,” the White House said in a social-media statement Tuesday afternoon.
Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant who was living in the U.S. illegally after overstaying a tourist visa, is facing dozens of state criminal charges as well as a federal hate crime count in connection with Sunday’s attack, which has shaken Colorado’s Jewish community.
He is accused of shouting “Free Palestine” and using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to burn people gathered on the popular pedestrian mall for a weekly demonstration urging the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Twelve people were hurt in the attack, and all are expected to survive, Boulder police Chief Stephen Redfearn said Tuesday. Three victims were still being treated at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital's burn unit Tuesday, spokeswoman Alli Witzman said.
Soliman, who lived in Kuwait for 17 years, arrived in the U.S. in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023. He overstayed his visa and sought political asylum in September 2022. He was granted a work authorization in March 2023, but that also expired.
Soliman settled in the Colorado Springs area with his wife and children.
Federal officials have not detailed the immigration statuses of Soliman's wife and children, but a Homeland Security spokeswoman told the New York Times that the State Department revoked all six family members' visas after the attack.
Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Denver, declined to comment Tuesday. Denver Post inquiries to the national ICE office and to the Department of Homeland Security were not answered.
Today, @DHSgov and @ICEGov are taking the family of suspected Boulder, Colorado terrorist, and illegal alien, Mohamed Soliman, into ICE custody.
This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this… pic.twitter.com/fcjMiyWil7
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) June 3, 2025
Noem said federal authorities are looking into whether Soliman's family knew that he was planning the attack in Boulder.
"We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it," she wrote on social media.
Soliman told investigators he did not share his plan with his wife, who cooperated with authorities after the attack.
Suspect blocked from buying gun
He also told authorities he had initially planned to carry out a shooting, but abandoned that idea when he was blocked from buying a gun.
Soliman visited Scheels All Sports in Colorado Springs on Nov. 22, 2024, to try to purchase a gun, Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokesman Rob Low said Tuesday.
"His application was processed through the CBI InstaCheck system, and shortly thereafter, Soliman’s attempted purchase was denied," Low said in a statement. "He never appealed his denial."
A Boulder police affidavit released Monday said Soliman told investigators he was denied the purchase "due to him not being a legal citizen."
Low wouldn't say specifically why Soliman's purchase was blocked, but said some denials are related to immigration status. If a gun purchase is blocked because of the would-be buyer's immigration status, CBI sends a notification to ICE about the denial, Low noted. Immigrants in the U.S. legally with no disqualifying criminal history can purchase guns in Colorado, he said.
Soliman was also denied a concealed handgun permit through both CBI and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office on Dec. 30, 2024, Low said.
"Colorado’s firearm background check system worked as designed when it comes to the actions of accused Boulder terrorism suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman," Low said.
Cassandra Sebastian, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, refused to discuss Soliman's application for a concealed carry permit Tuesday, citing the ongoing investigation.
A manager at the Scheels All Sports in Colorado Springs also declined to comment.
Overstaying tourist visas
Soliman was born in el-Motamedia, an Egyptian farming village in the Nile Delta province of Gharbia, to a school teacher who was widely respected in the area, according to an Egyptian security official who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media. The village is about 75 miles north of Cairo.
Soliman was a handball player with Cairo’s Zamalek club, Mortada Mansour, the club’s former chairman, wrote on Facebook.
Hundreds of thousands of people overstay their visas each year in the United States. There were 565,155 visa overstays from October 2022 through September 2023 among visitors who arrived by plane or ship — more than the population of the Reno, Nevada, or Chattanooga, Tennessee, metropolitan areas, according to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent annual report.
The total number of overstays is much larger, but has not been quantified because it doesn’t include how many people arrive and leave by land. The cost and technological hurdles to develop a checkout system at congested land crossings are enormous.
The overstay rate for Egyptians on business or tourist visas was 4%, below some of the biggest offenders such as Chad (49%), Laos (34%) and Sudan (26%).
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday also announced that it was bolstering its ICE tip line in the wake of the Boulder attack. The tip line is a phone number that anyone can call to report "suspicious criminal activity by illegal aliens," according to a Monday news release.
"Yesterday’s terrorist attack by a suspect illegally in our country, underscores the importance of getting these illegal aliens out of our country,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the news release.
The Associated Press, Denver Post reporter Lauren Penington and Daily Camera reporter Nicky Andrews contributed to this report
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