Trump Borrows Nazi Playbook to Imprison Firebomber’s Family in 'Hell Hole' ICE Prison

“This is a nightmare," immigration attorney Eric Lee tells Status Coup about the 9-month imprisonment of Colorado firebomber's innocent wife and children at Dilley ICE Prison.

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The similarities between the Trump regime and Nazi Germany are growing by the day—and playing out in immigration prisons across America.

Status Coup producer Michelle Dao spoke with Eric Lee, an immigration attorney, about the cruel, nearly year-long saga of President Trump punishing his clients, an innocent mother and her five children (ages 5-18), by imprisoning them in the horrid Dilley ICE Prison in South Texas as a punishment for…the crimes of their husband and father [WATCH Dao’s interview with Lee above].

On June 1st, 2025, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who traveled to America with his wife and five children legally on a tourist visa in 2022, attempted to firebomb a pro-Israel demonstration in Colorado. Soliman threw Molotov cocktails at marchers who were demanding the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. As a result, Karen Diamond, 82, was killed. Twelve others were injured.

Two days later, the Trump White House tweeted that Soliman’s family had been “captured”—despite no evidence they were fleeing. “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT,” the tweet continued—despite zero evidence Soliman’s wife or children had any knowledge of, or involvement in, his crime.

And for nine months since, Soliman’s family has languished in the “hell hole” that is Dilley, Lee told Status Coup, as the cruelest form of collective punishment.

“This is a nightmare, this is a hell hole,” Lee said about the conditions inside the Dilley ICE prison. As Status Coup reported, Dilley recently had a measles outbreak and a two-month old prisoner, Juan Nicolás—yes you read that right, a two-month old—was found choking on his own vomit.

After being brought to a Texas hospital for a mere few hours, and diagnosed with bronchitis, he was deported, while still sick, along with his mother and 16-month old sister. While in Mexico, he was diagnosed with RSV—a potentially fatal respiratory illness for newborns.

WATCH BELOW our interview on Juan Nicolás and the Dilley ICE Prison with N+ Univision reporter Lidia Terrazas

And Dilley, the nation’s lone family ICE prison, is where Soliman’s family continues to languish today, believed to be the longest held prisoners thus far.

Their attorney told Status Coup the stakes are dire—and conditions are life-threatening.

“This is a place where the water is putrid, where the guards are verbally abusive of the children, they won’t even give them water bottles. There’s no education, they go and they get babysat by a guard who isn’t even paying attention for one hour a day. They are set back for years, their development is set back permanently. The medical attention is non-existent. These are life-threatening conditions that these children are being forced to endure.”

Lee noted that the Trump administration is going against the basic tenets of democracy—and embracing fascism—by punishing Soliman’s family.

“One of the basic principles of a Democratic society, which this country claims to be, is that individuals are not responsible for the crimes committed by their relatives,” Lee said.

He evoked Nazi Germany—which assigned responsibility to family members for crimes committed by one of its members—to insinuate that the Trump administration’s punishment of Soliman’s family is borrowing from the Nazi playbook.

“That was a legal principle, if one can call it, that was present in Nazi Germany. It was called Sippenhaft, it was a principle that has feudal origins, for the same reason that an individual can not be thrown into a debtors prison for their father’s debt, the children and spouse of a criminal can not be detained by the federal government for months and months and months when they didn’t know, and had no ability to know, of the crime that he was preparing to carry out.”

Federal courts have blocked the deportation of Soliman’s family, ruling that their constitutional rights must be protected. “Federal courts have held repeatedly that elements of this family’s detention and deportation violate the constitution,” Lee explained.

Beyond the legal or constitutional concerns, there’s also the moral concerns of just who the Trump regime is keeping imprisoned.

“This prolonged detention has and continues to destroy our lives. It is slowly killing us on the inside,” a 16-year-old member of the Soliman family wrote in a letter that was part of 59 pages of letters and drawings, authored by the family’s five children, that was submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Wednesday. “Our mental health is at great risk. It is rapidly deteriorating with every day we spend here. Our lives are without purpose. We are just waiting for this nightmare to end,” the teenager grimly added.

The Texas Tribune exclusively obtained the letters and drawings.

The oldest child, 18-year-old Habiba Soliman, has had her bright future frozen. She had previously volunteered at a local hospital and won a leadership award at her high school. Before her father’s crime, and her imprisonment, she was profiled in the Denver Gazette.

While in high school, she earned academic honors while learning two new languages simultaneously. “Grades aren’t everything,” she said, adding that she learned to play basketball and embraced additional passions like literature and political theory.

This is the “worst of the worst” the Trump regime is imprisoning under the “worst of the worst” banner.

Status Coup will continue to cover this important story—and the Trump regimes ICE and immigration terror punishing innocent people (and killing immigrant prisoners and U.S. Citizens).

Status Coup has been reporting ON THE GROUND covering ICE TERROR for nearly a year! We’ve LED ALL OUTLETS reporting ON-THE-GROUND for nearly a year covering Trump’s ICE in LA, NYC, Alligator Alcatraz, Chicago, Charlotte, & Minneapolis. We’re INDEPENDENTLY FUNDED & this in-the-trenches reporting is VERY EXPENSIVE. The more viewers who sign up as paying members—for as low as $5 bucks a month—the more ON-THE-GROUND reporting we can provide (unless you’re waiting on CNN or the NY Times to show you the truth about the exploding fascism spreading all around us!) PLEASE SUPPORT US FOR AS LOW AS $5 BUCKS A MONTH.

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Let’s keep waking up the masses.