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On a recent rain-drenched fall afternoon, the mood at the Clifton Mosque in Cincinnati was one of elation and relief.
Last Friday, Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian imam and hospital chaplain who had been detained at a county jail for more than 10 weeks, was released and is expected to have his visa status fully returned.
Soliman had been accused by US authorities of a variety of alleged terror-related charges in Egypt and faced deportation having fled the North African country in 2014 after being detained there for his work as a journalist.
Held for 72 days at a notorious Ohio jail, the legal about-turn marks a major blow to the Trump administration’s aggressive and often illegal deportation campaign that’s seen hundreds of thousands of people forced out of the US, often without due process.
Soliman’s ordeal began during a regular check-in with immigration officials in Cincinnati on 9 July, when the 51-year-old from Cairo was subjected to an hours-long interview before being detained by an Ice agent and a representative of the FBI.
“Eventually, they said, ‘We’re sorry to tell you that we will detain you.’ I was shocked,” Soliman says.
“The Ice officer said that 24 hours ago there was a new order to detain everyone that comes to the Ice offices. He said: ‘I’m so sorry but it’s not my decision.’”
Soliman was transported to the Butler county jail and held in freezing conditions for 12 hours in the jail’s waiting room, where he struggled to stay warm wearing just a t-shirt and pants.
“The beds were rusted, and the only toilet was in a room with 13 or 14 other people around. It was traumatizing and dehumanizing,” he recalls.
Things worsened when Soliman was put in isolation – a cell where he was separated from others and denied nearly all rights granted to other detainees – for five days. He says it followed an argument when Soliman’s request for a quiet space to pray was rejected by a correctional officer who then claimed Soliman failed to comply with a lockdown call, something the imam denies.
“There is a multi-purpose room where Christian pastors and Muslim imams come to administer to people, but the officer told me to pray at the gym where people were playing basketball,” he says.
“He grabbed my arms, I asked him to take his hands off me, then he pressed an emergency button and in seconds five or six officers rushed in and they handcuffed me.”
Correctional officers at Butler County Jail have been accused of abusing detainees in the past. In 2020, two men refugees detained by Ice at the jail filed a lawsuit against the jail and an officer, claiming that beatings resulted in serious physical abuse including the loss of teeth.
Across the country, 12 people have died while in Ice custody since Trump took office in January.
While in isolation, Soliman says he was denied commissary, meaning he could not order paid for food or other items, wasn’t allowed to contact his attorney, or to engage with visitors.
“It was one of the most terrible experiences of my life. It was just as brutal as my detention in the torture dungeons in Egypt,” he says.
“They treated us like inmates, not detainees.”
He says he had one interaction with Richard Jones, the Butler county sheriff known for his long-held anti-immigrant and racist views.
“[Jones] said [speaking of Soliman]: ‘I know this guy; he is very famous. You are in the news all the time.’ He didn’t ask me how I was.” According to figures previously provided by Jones, the jail could have expected to net around $5,000 in taxpayer money from Soliman’s detention.
He says that nearly everyone he interacted with at the jail had crossed the southern border legally seeking asylum and were awaiting a court appearance to decide their case before being picked up by Ice officers in recent months. Some had been living in the US for decades; one had a son who served in the US Navy.
But for Soliman, the threat of being deported was a constant worry.
“The jail and its abuse was the least of my worries. My main fear was being put on a plane to Egypt and being tortured until I die. It never left my mind,” he says.
“Every day in jail, I felt I was getting closer to that.”
He says his experiences over the past several months have taught him that the country has changed, reminding him more of his life in Egypt. The Trump administration’s suing, taking to court and firing of more than a dozen immigration judges in recent months has widen fears that the US is falling deeper into an autocracy.
“This government can do whatever they want; if they can take judges to court, if they can fire judges. This government could have sent me home without trial, without immigration court,” he says.
“Ayman got his day in court because he could afford good lawyers, thanks to the generosity of the people who know and love him and strangers from around the country,” says Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance.
“But there are hundreds of people just like him in immigration jail today, who also don’t deserve to be there. The US government is accusing them of things they aren’t guilty of, and they are facing deportation to countries where they will be harmed.”
Soliman’s experience is ultimately a victorious one.
“I was reborn. I couldn’t imagine sitting here today, talking freely.” He says he hopes that now his asylum status has been returned that his application for a green card, which would grant him permanent residency, could be completed within several months.
“This is a real miracle.”
Soliman lost his job as a chaplain at Cincinnati children’s hospital after his asylum status was revoked, but the hospital has since faced a wave of controversy after two chaplains were fired after they spoke out in support of Soliman.
“I feel ethically obliged to go back [to work at Cincinnati Children’s hospital] for the families and patients. In the jail, I got 60, 70 letters from families I met [at the hospital]. It was my work as a chaplain that got people to empathize with me. They stood by my side; they fought for me.”
Towards the end of a two-hour interview with the Guardian, a man enters the mosque to attend prayers. Seeing Soliman for the first time since before his detention, the worshipper is almost overcome with joy; tears fall down his face.
“Alhamdulillah [Thank god], Alhamdulillah, you’re here,” he says. “You’re back.”
