"In the weeks leading up to July 9, Ayman Soliman told friends he was terrified of losing the sanctuary he'd found after fleeing Egypt in 2014 and building a new life as a Muslim chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Soliman, 51, was to show up at 9 a.m. on that date for his first check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since losing his asylum status. He'd been granted the protections in 2018 under the first Trump administration."
"By the time of Soliman's ICE appointment, friends said, he was distraught over the prospect of being returned to the regime that had jailed him for documenting protests as a journalist. He arrived at the agency's field office in Blue Ash, Ohio, accompanied by fellow clergy and a couple of Democratic state lawmakers. 'I didn't come to America seeking a better life. I was escaping death,' he said in a video filmed just before he entered."
Ayman Soliman fled Egypt in 2014 and later served as a Muslim chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. He received asylum protections in 2018. Immigration authorities moved to revoke his asylum based on disputed allegations of fraud and of providing aid to an Islamist militant group. The termination of his asylum was formalized on June 3 after an escalation of terrorism claims. At his July 9 ICE check-in, he arrived with clergy and Democratic lawmakers and said he had fled to escape death. FBI agents interrogated him for three hours about charity work in Egypt tied to the government's material-support accusations.
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