When lawless immigration enforcement shows up at my doorstep

The Trump administration’s disregard for judges’ rulings moved into my personal text messages

Advocates for Hayam El Gamal and her five children, detained for 10 months despite the lack of evidence against them, hold a media conference on the front steps of City Hall in my hometown of Colorado Springs on April 25.

At 11:10 a.m. last Saturday, April 25, I received a text message asking me to show up at a media conference within an hour. For the first time, the craziness of the past 15 months in the United States entered my home life.

When US Agency for International Development funding was eliminated without warning last year, I suffered with Ethiopian friends whose nutrition program was endangered; with a teacher friend in Thailand whose students from Myanmar lost their scholarship aid; and with a US friend supporting a ministry in Kenya where kids were no longer receiving their HIV medication.

Throughout the past year, I have suffered with European and Canadian friends dismayed by the US government’s attacks on supposed allies.

After the US and Israel bombed Iran, I have suffered with innocent victims from Malawi (where my friend Dalitso Mpanje cannot travel to visit the churches of his small denomination, because gas now costs $3.85 per liter or more than $14 per gallon) to Lebanon (where Jayson Casper and everyone else in Beirut lives with frequent explosions).

But those sad stories didn’t involve me directly. This weekend, a sad story entangled me.

This story started last year when a Muslim man, originally from Egypt but living in my home city of Colorado Springs, traveled 80 miles to the city of Boulder, Colorado and firebombed a Jewish event. His wife, Hayam El Gamal, said she had no knowledge of her husband’s plans. Nevertheless, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested her and her five children, age 5 to 18, and sent them to detention in horrible conditions at a facility in Texas, where they languished for 10 months.

My friend Megan Klaus and other Christian women became involved in advocating for the family’s release, which a judge ordered last week. Megan and three other women drove 13 hours to Texas to bring the family back to Colorado Springs.

As a condition of the El Gamal family’s release, they were required to check in at an ICE office in Denver, an hour away, on Saturday morning. When they did so, ICE promptly seized the family, contrary to the judge’s order, and put them on a plane.

Within three hours, advocates for the family were holding a protest at Colorado Springs city hall and getting national media attention. “The worst thing of all is to be given a little hope and then have it ripped away,” one woman said.

A teacher who had the El Gamals’ oldest child in her classroom told of visiting the family in detention, where they complained of malnutrition and systematic cruelty. She said that guards who treated the family humanely were disciplined for doing so.

Another women said the advocates had sat in the office of local Republican congressman Jeff Crank for 17 days but that he had refused to meet with them. (Full disclosure: I happen to be campaigning actively for Jessica Killin, Crank’s likely opponent in the November election.)

Jessica Killin, candidate for US Congress in Colorado Springs, addresses supporters at the grand opening party for her campaign office on April 25.

Meanwhile, the flight stopped in Detroit and took off again, presumably to remove the family from the United States. But the judge issued an emergency order and the plane turned around. The family was released again after returning to Colorado.

This incident leaves two bothersome questions in my mind.

1. Why is ICE engaging in deception, kidnapping of a family, and defiance of a judge’s order? One could imagine a government having legitimate concerns that the wife of a terrorist might be a threat, but not her five-year-old twins.

According to a news report, Laura Lichter, one of the family’s lawyers, explained the deception as follows: “ICE officials told [Lichter] this was a routine check in to verify the equipment, including ankle monitors, issued in Texas to Hayam, the mother, and Habiba, the eldest daughter, was working. It was taking too long, Lichter said, and eventually ICE officials told her they had detained the family and put them on a plane.”

Habiba had previously expressed her feelings about being treated viciously because someone else committed a crime: “Imagine being punished for something that you didn’t do, something you would never support, and then being trapped in detention for months. Despite having overwhelming evidence to prove our innocence, the truth is ignored.”

Many would say that ICE is acting in this way because the Trump administration has demonstrated a practice of preferring ideology over truthfulness in the pursuit of its policy goals.

Here’s the administration’s side of the story, as reported by the New York Times:

Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that Ms. El Gamal and her children had been issued a final order of removal in December 2025. She said the family appealed the order and the board of immigration appeals upheld the removal order.

“Despite receiving full due process, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets again,” Ms. Bis said, referring to Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court in San Antonio, who ordered the family’s release on Thursday.

Ms. Bis did not confirm that the family had been detained on Saturday, though she said that the department would “continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country.”

2. Why are Christians tolerating such behavior by their government?

Not all Christians are tolerating it. Many of the women advocating for the El Gamal family are members of an evangelical Anglican church in Colorado Springs. But other Christians continue to support the Trump administration’s immigration approach. I have discussed some of their reasoning previously, and I hope to address it further in future posts.

In the meantime, I hope that Christians will refrain from endorsing the work of anyone who embraces opportunities to inflict misery on innocent people, and that we will be fountains of forgiveness and healing when this discomforting period of US history has passed.