Lawyers representing the El Gamal family allege abuse by the Denver ICE office following release

We can now share the details of the Trump administration's illegal attempt to deport the El Gamal family in violation of a federal court order last Saturday. On the afternoon of Thursday, April 23, Hayam El Gamal and her five children were released from almost 11 months of detention at Dilley. Relieved and eager to start their lives anew, they drove back to their home in Colorado with community supporters. ICE scheduled a check-in for Saturday morning. The family arrived in Colorado about 6 hours before the check-in, slept briefly, and drove to the Denver area to the ICE Field Office. When they checked-in, smiling ICE officers told them the check-in would last "five minutes" and that they would be on their way home soon. Then they were separated from their attorney, taken behind several locked doors, surrounded by 15 officers with guns and told "you are being deported today." They protested and explained that their deportation was barred by court order, but the ICE officers said they didn't care. They were rushed into a van with bars between the front two seats and the passenger area. An ICE officer sped at roughly 90 miles an hour down the highway to the Denver airport. The children were not put in car seats or seatbelts. One child said they were going to be sick and the officer said "throw up on the floor." They were driven onto the tarmac at Denver International Airport where a private jet contracted by Air Wisconsin was awaiting them. The plane had been brought up to Denver at roughly the same time the family was released--an indication that ICE began planning to re-detain them from the moment a federal court ordered their release. The family was able to make a frantic call to their legal team from the tarmac in which they provided the tail number before the call was abruptly cut short. On the flight, the family was in extreme distress. They were subject to verbal abuse and medical neglect by ICE contractors. A nurse took Ms. El Gamal's blood pressure and noted it was dangerously high. Despite this, and despite Ms. El Gamal informing the contractors that she was suffering an undiagnosed heart condition, she and her children were not allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts for the duration of the flight. At one point a contractor physically restrained Ms. El Gamal from touching her seatbelt, humiliating her in front of her panicked children. One of the children suffered a panic attack during the flight. When the plane was turned around in mid-air after leaving the United States, the family was made to sit at the Willow Run airport in Michigan for a protracted period of time. Still they were not allowed out of their seatbelts. They were eventually returned to Denver and released to a group of community supporters. They are presently recuperating from this experience and from the immense trauma they have suffered for the last year. On Monday, May 4, Ms. El Gamal and her children filed an Amended Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in the District of Colorado. At present, two courts have barred the Trump administration from attempting to deport the El Gamal family. We ask the public to remain vigilant about the family's case and to remain wide awake to the possibility that the administration will violate existing court orders in its year-long effort to drive this innocent family from the United States.