White House boasts family of suspect in Boulder attack ‘could be deported as early as tonight’ The White House is boasting on its official social media accounts about the arrests of the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspected Boulder attacker, who were taken into custody on Tuesday.
Soliman’s six family members, “have been captured and are now in ICE custody for expedited removal”, a White House post says. It adds, in all caps: “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT.”
Thirty minutes later, the White House added, in the gleeful, mocking tone that has distinguished posts gloating over deportations of even immigrants sent to foreign jails by mistake: “Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon.”
That timeline would appear to conflict with both court orders that people threatened with deportation should be given sufficient time to challenge their removals, and a statement from the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, earlier on Tuesday, that authorities “are investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it”.
According to a state arrest affidavit, Soliman told the Boulder police “no one knew about his plans and he never talked to his wife or family about it”.
For its post on Instagram, the White House cropped an image of Soliman taken during the attack to include a rainbow Progress Pride Flag on the Boulder courthouse behind him.
Stephen Redfearn, the Boulder police chief, said on Tuesday that all of the victims of the firebomb attack are expected to survive, the Denver Post reports. Three of the 12 victims are being treated at UCHealth’s burn and frostbite center at the University of Colorado in Aurora.