COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — The suspect in the attack towards a group of pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder was pending asylum after arriving in the United States in 2022.
Mohamad Soliman, a 45-year-old man, was living in El Paso County but from Egypt. The Department of Homeland Security says he arrived in Aug. 2022 on a B-2 visa, which is used for tourism.
A month later, in Sept. 2022 he applied for asylum. Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security tells NBC News his asylum claim was pending.
The B-2 visa expired in February 2023, in March 2023 DHS said he was granted a work authorization, which later expired.
Work authorizations issued at that time were typically two years, according to immigration attorney Brandon Roche. Towards the end of the Biden administration, work authorization was being granted for five years.
Roche said the process of getting asylum granted can take up to five to six years as the courts are facing a backlog.
Soliman now faces both federal and state charges, including federal hate crime charges and attempted murder; he could face life in prison.
“A really important point to all this is that criminal activity is a bar to asylum,” Roche said, “serious crimes, anything terrorist related, anything where you yourself are a persecutor of others is an absolute bar to asylum.”
According to the American Immigration Council, more than a million people have applied for asylum and have pending cases in immigration courts as of December 2024.
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