Last week, Ayman Soliman and his attorneys filed a lawsuit challenging the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) unlawful termination of his asylum status. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey P. Hopkins issued a 14-day Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and advised the parties that he could continue this relief once a new habeas petition is filed.

“This is a necessary reprieve that will prohibit the government from moving Ayman out of Ohio for the time being and allow us to amend the complaint to file an additional habeas action and provide additional briefing,” said Franchel D. Daniel, Immigration Senior Staff Attorney with the Muslim Legal Fund of America. Absent a TRO, there was nothing stopping the government from moving Ayman to a detention center outside of Ohio. Detention center shuffling oftentimes creates significant delays in immigration cases. It can also cause cases to be assigned to a different judge, which among other things changes the scheduling and makes it more difficult for them to meet with their attorneys. 

Furthermore, this lawsuit disputes the notion that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on their own authority can terminate any asylum grant at any time, even if the person remains eligible for the asylum. No asylum approval will ever be final if this becomes the standard. Kathryn H. Brady, Immigration Department Head with the Muslim Legal Fund of America stated, “In Ayman’s case, DHS wants to be judge, jury, and executioner for his asylum status and foreclose others’ review of its decision. When the law and the facts are not on the government’s side, it is essential that a neutral judge can review the case. This is what we hope to address in the pending Administrative Procedure Act (APA) action.”

For now, Ayman’s removal proceedings will continue in the Cleveland Immigration Court before Immigration Judge Jennifer Reidthaler Williams, with the next master hearing scheduled for August 12 at 8am.  

Ayman Soliman, a Cincinnati resident and former chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, arrived in the U.S. in 2014 fleeing persecution in Egypt in retaliation for his freelance work with journalism crews. He was granted asylum after a thorough review by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). No terrorism-related concerns were raised at the time of his asylum grant. 

On June 3, 2025, USCIS terminated Soliman’s asylum status, claiming that through his involvement with the charitable organization Al-Gam’iyya al-Shar’iyya (GS) he had provided “material support” to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) — which the terminating asylum officer deemed an undesignated Tier III terrorist organization. The U.S. government has not designated the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a terrorist organization and has never accused Mr. Soliman of participating in any criminal or terrorist activity. The asylum officer’s decision relies on two pre-2018 academic reports which USCIS alleges show links between GS and MB. 

But the authors of these reports have submitted letters refuting USCIS’s interpretation, stating that GS is a decentralized, non-political charity with no organizational ties to MB and that the government misrepresented the reports. One author, Steven Brooke, an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, emphasized that GS operates independently and cooperates with various groups and the Egyptian government for charitable purposes only. The other author, Marie Vannetzel, a researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, described GS as a “para-public” service agency aiding Egypt’s underserved population, with any historical MB involvement limited and non-terrorist in nature.

Using these letters as exhibits, a new lawsuit filed by Mr. Soliman’s attorneys in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, argues that USCIS’s asylum termination lacks new evidence, contains factual errors, improperly shifts the burden of proof, and violates res judicata by re-litigating issues settled by USCIS’s grant of asylum in 2018. “This termination is not based on facts or law but on a misguided reinterpretation of old information,” said Robert A. Ratliff, Soliman’s attorney with Brennan, Manna & Diamond, LLC. “Ayman has built a life in Cincinnati, contributing to his community, and now faces deportation to a country where he risks torture and death. We’re fighting to restore his rightful asylum status.”

“The government’s assertions, although presented as fact, are actually a cascading series of layered and unsubstantiated assumptions. The government’s assumption stacking fails to meet its burden of proof,” said Franchel D. Daniel, Immigration Senior Staff Attorney with the Muslim Legal Fund of America.

Read about the broad and deep community support for Ayman Soliman, known as the “Interfaith Imam,” here.