Egyptian former journalist jailed in Ohio after U.S. revokes asylum

Former journalist Ayman Soliman, who was granted asylum in the United States after being persecuted for his reporting on the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, was jailed in Hamilton, Ohio, weeks after his asylum was revoked on June 3, 2025.

Soliman began his journalism career documenting student protests in Egypt and was jailed, beaten and tortured by the Egyptian authorities as a result, his lawyers say. He fled to the United States in 2014 and applied for asylum, which was granted in 2018 after “prominent American journalists” advocated on his behalf, according to the Muslim Legal Fund of America.

In early 2021, Soliman was hired as a prison chaplain in Oregon, but a background check revealed that the FBI had flagged his profile without explanation, The Associated Press reported. The job offer was then rescinded.

In response, Soliman sued the heads of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Terrorist Screening Center, as well as then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, for violations of due process and the Privacy Act, arguing that an FBI flag and various designations on his boarding passes when traveling indicated that he had been included in the Terrorist Screening Database.

A November 2024 court ruling dismissed most of his suit but allowed a due process violation claim to proceed. The next month, Soliman received a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services notifying him that the agency was considering revoking his asylum status.

In June 2025, Soliman’s asylum was officially revoked and, on July 9, at the first Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in he was required to attend, his lawyers said he was detained and put in Butler County jail.

The government claims that Soliman served on the board of a nongovernmental organization that provides support to the Muslim Brotherhood, WCPO-TV reported. Soliman’s lawyers told the outlet that the government knew about the board membership when it granted asylum but that last year, an asylum officer newly labeled both the NGO and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations.

The lawyers claim the government did so to retaliate against Soliman for his lawsuit, relying only on the asylum officer’s new interpretations rather than the persecution he experienced in Egypt, Soliman’s attorney Robert Ratliff told WCPO-TV.

Those interpretations, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance said, are based on academic reports whose authors have since refuted the asylum officer’s conclusions.

On July 11, Soliman filed an emergency habeas corpus petition, requesting a temporary restraining order to keep DHS from transferring him outside the jurisdiction of Cleveland Immigration Court. The order was granted on July 15 and extended to July 30.

On July 24, Soliman filed an additional request for a restraining order and preliminary injunction in a separate case against the heads of USCIS, its Chicago Asylum Office and the DHS. That case seeks to reinstate his asylum status and calls the revocation a violation of federal law, including the Fifth Amendment.

Multiple protests in Cincinnati, where Soliman had worked as a chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital since 2021, have called for Soliman’s release, including one on a bridge into Kentucky, where two journalists were arrested and charged with an array of felonies and misdemeanors.

“Going back to Egypt for me is a death sentence,” Soliman said. “I didn't come to America seeking a better life. It was escaping death.”