The immigration status of the Boulder flamethrower and his family
Mohamed Soliman, the man in custody for the attack on the pro-Israel crowd in Boulder, Colorado, came here during the Biden administration:
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, posted on X early Monday that Mohamed Soliman had entered the U.S. on a B2 visa that expired in February 2023. He had also applied for asylum in September 2022.
A B2 visa is a tourist visa that allows foreign citizens to enter the country for a temporary stay. It’s usually granted after a background check and interview. Then, the person receives a 10-year permit to visit the country. Typically, each stay is limited to six months.
So, the person gets his or her foot in the door through a tourist visa and then switches to asking for asylum, which confers enormous advantages:
Jimenez [an immigration attorney] said that many people here on visas file applications for asylum, sometimes even after their permit has expired. He said it’s often a lengthy process, and he knows of people who are waiting eight to 10 years for an interview. While that claim is pending, applicants are allowed to stay in the U.S.
I assume that the enormous length of the process results from the fact that many more people are asking for asylum, having learnd the ropes online. It’s stated that he was born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for seventeen years, before coming here. So, what’s illegal about his residence here? It seems his original tourist visa expired in August of 2023 and it was never renewed, although I’m not sure how the asylum request enters into it.
Meanwhile, he’s been living here with his wife and four children, all of whom have been taken into ICE custody:
The Department of Homeland Security is investigating “to what extent” the family of suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, “knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote separately on X.
If so, they could be deported expeditiously – unless a district judge rules against it, I suppose. Even if they didn’t know, it seems to me they could be deported after a more lengthy process. Interestingly enough, his daughter recently graduated from high school and was featured in this article in the Denver Gazette. Here’s an especially fascinating passage:
When she was young her father underwent a difficult surgery that restored his ability to walk. Habiba wrote that she considered the medical procedure nothing short of “magic.” She realized the importance of medicine and knew it was something she wanted to pursue. Habiba was born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for 14 years. Because she was not Kuwaiti, the prospect of attending medical school there was not an option. The move to the United States provides a chance to fulfill her dream.
So, even though the family had resided in Kuwait and were Egyptian Muslims, the children wouldn’t have been allowed to attend medical school there? In the US, apparently no problem.
ADDENDUM: I’ve got a more recent post here with some updated information.
If so, they could be deported expeditiously – UNTIL a district judge rules against it, I suppose.
Fixed it for you.
There will be more. The alliance of the progressive left and Islam means a lot of violence in the future.
Well, this just sewed up her acceptance to Harvard Medical School in 4 years when the Democrats are firmly back in control. And no, I’m being dead serious.
Our immigration law is a accumulation of stupidities.
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If we were sensible, temporary resident status would be granted to accredited employees of foreign governments, authentic refugees, students, teachers, and dependents of people in these categories (your wife, your children, your elderly parents, not your second cousin from Port Said). That’s it.
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If we were sensible, persons here who applied for asylum (and their dependents) would be placed in jail until their case was fully adjudicated. If they were refused, they would be immediately take to a transportation hub and deported to (1) the first place they alighted after leaving their home country or (2) a place adjacent to their home country or (3) their home country. If the primary applicant was discovered to have skipped over other countries before arriving here, his application (and that of his dependents) would be summarily denied.
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If we were sensible, we would have a target value for the stock of temporary residents in the country at any one time, say, about 1.5 million. If the stock was over the target value, there would be a moratorium on the issuance of visas for students, teachers, and their dependents. If being vended, any such visas would be non-renewable and distributed in periodic multiple price auctions. The bidders would be the schools themselves and the only schools permitted to bid would be those who had a compliant system of pricing their services. If Columbia wants to be the ‘international university’, they have to limit mandatory charges to tuition and room-and-board, they have to disclose the mean annual expenditure of their students on voluntary purchases and fees, they have to have one stated rate for all comers in re tuition and room-and-board, they have to disclose the share of their student body receiving discounts on those rates, they have to disclose the mean discounts per student and per recipient, they have to disclose the share of their students granted stipends and the mean stipend per student and per recipient, they have to disclose the funding sources of the discounts and stipends, and they have to purchase the visas for their foreign recruits at auction. .
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If we were sensible, visas for sojourners would be offered under five dispensations: transit visas issued for periods measured in days to those working in shipping-and-transportation and those with airline layovers and the like, tourist visas issued to those wishing to travel here which would be good for a period of time you request so long as your time on such visas did not exceed 70 days in any bloc of 365 days; bereavement-and-family-business visas issued for a irregular term of up to a year for those who had to pick up a body, take care of a sick relative, sell off or ship out a relative’s property &c; touring performer’s visas which would be requested by booking agents and on which you could be present for 70 days in any bloc of 365 days, and emergency services visas which could be requisitioned by civil defense authorities who needed technicians with discrete skills to contain an oil spill, fight a forest fire, and the like.
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If we were sensible, anyone reasonably suspected of being an illegal alien would be jailed immediately. If the arresting officer proved to be in error, the subject would be issued an indemnity at a standard rate. If not, the subject would be imprisoned for a period as a penalty for being here illegally, and, if facing no other charges, deported, and debarred from entry for any reason for a term of years.
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If we were sensible, annual issuance of settler’s visas would be a function of the total population and life expectancy. About 250,000 per annum would do for now. They would be issued on a roughly first-come–first-served basis; no one over 14 could get in the queue for one without passing a cursory background check, a physical, and a written and oral proficiency test in English; and anyone who entered the queue as a juvenile would be stopped at the head of it (were they over 14) had they not passed the relevant tests.
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If we were sensible, foreigners who qualified as settlers, temporary residents, touring performers, emergency services personnel, and shipping-and-transportation personnel would have a franchise to work in this country. No other foreigners would. The compensation of the last would be booked to heir home ports and those in the third and fourth category could work here only under discrete circumstances stated. Temporary residents here under the understanding they were working for a foreign government, studying, or teaching would face an inquiry were they devoting more than a threshold value of time to moonlighting. Temporary residents would be debarred from public employment outside the educational and medical sectors, settlers would be debarred from a selection of public sector jobs, and a selection of occupational licenses would be offered only to citizens. (And of course, foreigners have no business voting, making political contributions, or sitting on juries).
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If we were sensible, foreigners reasonably suspected of a criminal offense would (if it were more severe than a petty misdemeanor) be placed in preventive detention. If the case were not processed, or they were acquitted, or the eventual penalty was less than time served, they could be indemnified on release according to a standard rate. We’re they convicted, they’d serve a clipped sentence in lieu of being eligible for parole and their right to reside in the country would be revoked or suspended for a term of years which would be a function of the severity of their offense. On release, they’d be deported.
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If we were sensible, terms of access to government-financed common provision on the part of foreigners would be a function of the work credit accumulated by themselves and any head of household of which they were a dependent. Some programs would require little or no work credit, some a great deal. As a rule, a person should have acquired 48 quarters of f/t work credit ‘ere one could be treated as if one were a native citizen.
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If we were sensible, the civil status of a person born in this country would be derived from that of their mother unless they were of legitimate birth and their father had a preferred status. Naturalization would be available to settlers who had spent the majority of their natural life living within the law as a palpable resident the country (contingent on taking an examination in American history, geography, and civics and signing declarations renouncing one’s citizenship in any other country in which one had a cognizable claim to citizenship).
Because she was not Kuwaiti, the prospect of attending medical school there was not an option. The move to the United States provides a chance to fulfill her dream.
Ah yes, the bigoted, intolerant, xenophobic, Islamophobic USA. (I’m sure there is a plethora of similar adjectives, but these are what came to mind.)
I am reminded of one of the last Christmas letters my mother received, from the paterfamilias of a Palestinian Christian family we knew. The paterfamilias and his wife were living with their daughter’s family in Kuwait. Several years later Saddam invaded Kuwait. For some funny reason, Kuwait didn’t take kindly to Palestinian support for Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.
(I would add that lefties assume that the above adjectives accurately describe us of the wingnut tendency, but of course not, lefties.)
Does anyone here know how the family entered the US, being that they are also illegally in the country?
Telemachus:
Tourist visas, good for six months. I don’t know whether the tourist visa for him was good for bringing his family, or whether they each needed one, but tourist visas would be the way.
You were saying
https://x.com/julie_kelly2/status/1930370048448680284
According to his linked in he worked for a saudi real estate company roysa before he came to the states
Neo, thanks for the update on how they all got here. As a former Consul I can affirm that each person must qualify on their own for a B1/B2 visa. Just what was going through the visa officer’s mind when he/she approved those visas baffles me. I’d like for the officer’s case notes to be made public. I’ll make an educated guess that there was pressure from a Biden-era Consular Affairs division at State to rubber stamp these types of applications. One more reason to detest Biden and Blinken.
Biden judge issues the restraining order to block the deportation
https://nypost.com/2025/06/04/us-news/deportation-of-boulder-terror-suspect-mohamed-solimans-wife-and-five-children-blocked-by-biden-appointed-judge/
Btw murk Collins grassley and Lindsay voted for him
so you see who could be confirmed then, Wray had been Chris Christies atty in his own exercise of lawfare, oddly who could not relate with Trump’s experience, the other candidates,
Mike Rogers of Michigan or Mike McFaul, weren’t much better
of course he didn’t know the level of skulduggery that was down several levels from McCabe down to Peter Strzok, mostly useless at best, malicious malpractice at worst,
those who were somewhat aware would have known his part in sabotaging the Bush administration terrorist surveillance program, along with Comey, and Mueller, it’s like a musical these three players keep rotationg themselves
this isn’t even the first tragedy in Boulder with these type of characters as Daniel Greenfield points out a similar event happened four years ago,
Weird goings on in the Colorado man deportation case. From John Podhoretz via instantapundit.
Susanna Dvortsin, who petitioned the court to stay the deportation of the firebomber’s wife and children–called the “Next Friend”–was barred from the practice of law owing to misconduct in an immigration matter in South Dakota in 2019.
The “next friend”;s petition was heard because the firebomber’s wife is unreachable and Dvortsin presented an affidavit that said she had a significant relationship with her. One other interesting thing: wife’s last name is different. He’s Soliman. She’s El Gamal.
Trump should just ignore the restraining order and drive on.
I’ve got a more recent post here with some updated information.