ICE detained family less than two days after court ordered their release
An Egyptian family which was released from more than 10 months of immigration detention following court orders was taken into custody again by federal authorities for several hours on Saturday, the family's legal team said.
Hayam El Gamal and her five children aged 5 to 18 were detained less than 48 hours after a federal judge had ordered their release, the family's legal team said in a statement.
The family, which lives in Colorado, was arrested as they complied with a requirement to check in at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Denver, according to The Colorado Sun.
ICE had put them on a plane that would have flown to Michigan "and then outside the United States to an unknown location," the family's legal team said. Eric Lee, a lawyer for the family, later said a federal court granted an emergency motion to stop the planned deportation.
Lee posted early on Sunday that "ICE just released the El Gamal family," saying their detention violated court orders.
In a statement on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said the family was receiving "full due process" and cast the judge who ordered the family's release as an "activist judge" who is "releasing this terrorist's family onto American streets AGAIN."
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