No Refuge in a System Built on Repression: Free Imam Soliman

Protestors gathered outside of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in support of Imam Soliman’s release.

Introduction

We stand in unwavering solidarity with Imam Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian journalist, torture survivor, and Muslim chaplain. He should not be sitting in a jail cell. He should be with his family, with his congregation, and with the communities he has served across the Greater Cincinnati area.

This is not simply a miscarriage of justice. It is part of a broader bipartisan assault on immigrants, on Muslims, and on the right to dissent. Asylum is being transformed from a legal safeguard into a political weapon, wielded to punish the vulnerable and silence the disobedient. Both bourgeois parties are complicit.

We demand Imam Soliman's immediate release, the restoration of his asylum status, and ultimately, that he be granted permanent residency and citizenship in the U.S.

What Happened to Imam Soliman

Soliman fled Egypt in 2014 after being detained and tortured by the Egyptian state for his journalism during the Arab Spring. In 2018, he was granted asylum in the United States. Since then, he has lived and worked across the Midwest, most recently serving as a Muslim chaplain at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Throughout this, he was in full compliance with his immigration status.

Then, in December 2024, the Biden administration quietly moved to begin the process of revoking his asylum protections, offering no meaningful justification or due process. In July 2025, under the Trump administration, Soliman was detained by ICE during a check-in and transferred to the Butler County Jail. He now awaits a July 24 court date.

There is only an allegation of concerns regarding past associations—concerns that did not prevent him from being granted asylum in the first place. His only offense was seeking and receiving asylum, living peacefully, and serving the public. That is, until two successive administrations, first under Biden and now under Trump, conspired to strip him of his protections and began the process of deporting him to the very regime that had once tortured him.

This is not a national security matter. It is a political message, and it signals a dangerous escalation in the bipartisan war on immigrants and dissent.

The Bipartisan Deportation Regime

Imam Soliman's detention is the continuation of a long-standing pattern in which the U.S. government weaponizes the immigration system to surveil, punish, and disappear Muslim immigrants, especially those with visible community roles. Since 9/11, each successive administration has built and expanded a national security state that treats Muslims as threats by default and that reserves the right to revoke protections, rights, and even residency at will.

This pattern includes everything from secret watchlists and entrapment operations to targeted deportations and attacks on asylum. Muslims serving in mosques, hospitals, schools, and prisons—especially those with ties to countries like Egypt, Palestine, or Iran—are often subject to heightened scrutiny and silent removal proceedings, even when they have legal status. Egyptian nationals are especially vulnerable due to close ties between the U.S. and the Sisi regime, which continues to receive billions in U.S. miliary aid despite its record of torture, repression, and human rights abuses.

The Biden administration’s expanded asylum ban, finalized in September 2024, further restricted asylum access. The policy forces vulnerable people to wait in dangerous conditions, effectively blocking their right to seek refuge. It contradicts both international law and America’s professed values, deepening the crisis of asylum erosion under U.S. immigration policy.

Imam Soliman's case is not about justice, but systemic terror and control. And it is one of many.

Empire Makes No Refuge

Imam Soliman’s case signals a dangerous new chapter in the dissolution of asylum protections. It makes clear that even asylum recipients with deep community ties can be retroactively scapegoated, stripped of their legal status, and targeted for deportation without transparent explanation or due process.

The revocation of Soliman’s asylum was carried out behind closed doors, with no meaningful opportunity for him to confront or respond to the vague allegations against him. This lack of transparency makes a mockery of what asylum is supposed to guarantee—a legal shield for those fleeing persecution. Instead, asylum is being transformed into a conditional privilege, revocable at the discretion of political actors when convenient.

This case continues and sharpens a precedent set by earlier deportations of activists like Khalil and Öztürk—individuals targeted explicitly for their political organizing and activism. But the difference here is striking. Soliman was not a visible activist, nor is he accused of any political or criminal offense. He is simply Egyptian and Muslim, a fact that alone suffices to mark him for repression.

By targeting someone like Soliman, the state is expanding its net of suspicion and making clear what the people have long known: that no one in vulnerable immigrant communities is truly safe. This precedent threatens to unsettle the entire asylum system, undermining the promise of protection for refugees. It sends a chilling message to all those seeking reprieve from war, persecution, or repression, even when those wars and regimes are often backed by the U.S. itself.

Toward Revolutionary Solidarity

We demand the immediate release of Imam Soliman from ICE detention and the full restoration of his asylum status. His detention is a political decision. It must be reversed without delay.

We demand an end to the assault on asylum. The weaponization of asylum and immigration policy targets vulnerable people who have done everything required of them, and it threatens the safety of all immigrant communities.

We call for the abolition of ICE and the entire carceral immigration enforcement system. ICE’s very existence is rooted in racial profiling, surveillance, family separation, and state violence against immigrants. No one should live in fear of detention and deportation by this agency.

We urge every community, union, mosque, church, synagogue, temple, and organization committed to justice to stand with Imam Soliman. Organize and support direct action. Make it impossible for those in power to silence this injustice.

We urge every worker, student, tenant, and neighbor to treat this case as your own because it is. Use your voice, your labor, your space, and your relationships to disrupt business as usual. Support or join a local revolutionary organization. The power of solidarity lies not in sentiment, but in action.

Imam Soliman’s freedom is a test—not just of our values, but of our collective capacity to defend one another. If we let this pass without organized resistance, more will follow. We fight now because we know what’s at stake: our communities, our rights, and our future.