The mainstream media has leaned into hailing Imam Ayman Soliman as a persecuted “interfaith leader,” in an attempt to garner sympathy while glossing over key facts. On MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime, hosts bemoaned the “unjust” detention of someone they referred to as a community leader who “came to the U.S. From Egypt in 2014 seeking asylum” and “has dedicated his life to interfaith work.” Yet, downplayed his appearance on a federal terrorism watchlist.
Official documents confirm Soliman’s asylum status, which was granted in mid‑2018, was revoked in June by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, following a December 2024 notification of intent (during the Biden administration). U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed he was flagged in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Dataset, information largely absent from liberal media coverage.
Soliman filed FOIA lawsuits against the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center claiming an “FBI flag” was wrongfully placed on his name. Judge Loren L. AliKhan, who was appointed by President Biden to serve on D.C.’s District Court, granted summary judgment to the government on March 31, 2025, and rejected Soliman’s request to compel disclosure of records.
Host Antonia Hylton introduced the audience to Soliman free of these facts, painting him as an innocent man of faith who was baselessly detained by ICE:
Another immigrant suddenly detained by ICE, sparking unanswered questions about due process and leaving a community in uproar. This is Imam Ayman Soliman, a former chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. He came to the U.S. from Egypt in 2014 seeking asylum, and since then he's dedicated his life to interfaith work, supporting families fighting for their kids’ recovery, or praying for those suffering from losses in the hospital.
Hylton even further stated that “we don’t know why” Soliman was detained, and mentioned he was being held at the “controversial” Butler County Jail. Hylton did not elaborate on or provide evidence as to why the jail was supposedly controversial.
The panel then interviewed two mothers, whose children were patients at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The mothers, Heather Barrow and Taylor McLean, recounted how Soliman “was instrumental in just providing a comforting presence during a really scary time” and “a huge presence in our lives… our daughter is living today because of his advocacy.”
During the interview, the audience was subjected to an onslaught of praise for Soliman, which highlighted only his work as the Hospital’s chaplain. At best, the recollections of Solimani’s time as chaplain were vague, with the mothers’ only describing him as supportive and comforting.
While several media outlets have emphasized his hospital chaplaincy and community support, they largely omit that Soliman had previously been supported by the group YUSRA (Young United Souls for Revolutionary Action), a Muslim grassroots political organization which explicitly positions itself around “revolutionary actions aimed at fostering systemic change.”
Public statements from DHS officials directly reference the terror‑watchlist flag as justification for revocation, as confirmed by the Assistant Secretary of Department of Homeland Security in an X post.
Hosts Ayman Mohyeldin and Antonia Hylton repeatedly pushed the false narrative that there was no evidence to support the detention of Soliman. Mohyeldin ignored how the removal process started under President Biden to frame it as solely an Trump admonition decision (Click “expand”):
MOHYELDIN: Allen, can I go back to a point that you brought up and it’s almost to kind of separate the case of the individual with the rights of due process here? You know, we don't know exactly as you and others have been talking about, we don't know the case, his asylum and what may have gotten him to this point and why he was ultimately detained. And there are a lot of questions about that.
But at the same time, the fact that people believe he was not granted due process. Can you tell us what are the rights of people? And I think we saw a similar parallel with the case around Kilmer Abrego Garcia. He may not have been the perfect man or the perfect case, but that's even more reason to say you have to ensure due process rights for everyone, even the people in our society who may have a question mark over their behavior or their actions.
Hylton’s description of the county jail treated it akin to a CIA black site, allowing immigration lawyer Allen Orr to suggest Soliman would be tortured at Butler County Jail, despite– again– zero evidence to substantiate the claim, and alluded that illegal immigration is not a “real crime”:
ORR: So, if your only crime is entering the United States, then you should be returned to your country. You should not be put in torture in the United States. We've seen a vast variety, and I've been to many detention centers close to the border and removed from the border. This is not the way you treat people to put them in places of places where people actually committed real crimes.
The truth of the matter is that there has been a plethora of evidence that has surfaced since Soliman’s detention, but the media were preoccupied with crafting headlines full of sappy adjectives to describe him. It seemed like MSNBC cared more about creating sob stories that demonize the Trump administration rather than reporting the facts.
The entire transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime
June 13, 2025
7:14:16 PM ETANTONIA HYLTON: Another immigrant suddenly detained by ICE, sparking unanswered questions about due process and leaving a community in uproar. This is Imam Ayman Soliman, a former chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. He came to the U.S. from Egypt in 2014 seeking asylum, and since then he's dedicated his life to interfaith work, supporting families fighting for their kids’ recovery, or praying for those suffering from losses in the hospital.
The Biden administration started the process to revoke his asylum status in 2024, and we don't know yet, why? Because the government has not explained that decision. But the Trump administration finalized it last month. Then, this past Wednesday, ICE arrested him during a check in. He is now being detained in the Butler County Jail near Cincinnati, a controversial site that has partnered with DHS to hold immigrant detainees under both Trump administrations. Its ICE contract was canceled during Biden's presidency.
For Ayman, the future is now uncertain. Hundreds have raised money for his legal defense, and many shared character testimonies, hoping the government would change course. They say he was there for families of all faiths in the hospital, in their children's greatest time of need, and on the day he was arrested, here's what he told a state official in an interview.
[Cuts to video]
AYMAN SOLIMAN [IN CLIP FROM INTERVIEW]: If anything happens, just to speak about me.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yeah.
SOLIMAN: That this is unfair. And going back to Egypt for me is a death sentence. It's not. I didn't come to America seeking a better life. It was escaping death.
[Cuts back to live]
HYLTON: Joining us now are two moms whose children were cared for by a mom Imam Ayman Soliman, Heather Barrow and Taylor McLean. Also with us is Allen Orr, immigration attorney, and the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Thank you all for being here with us this evening.
Heather, I want to begin with you. Tell us the story of how you met Ayman, and what it was like for your family, working with him, hearing from him while you and your children were at the hospital.
HEATHER BARROW: Thank you for having us. I had my daughter last June at a different local hospital, and then we were transferred to Children's three days later. She was born at six months. She was very premature, very sick, and we spent June to mid-November in the NICU with her before she unfortunately passed.
And Ayman was with us every step of the way. We met him the first day we were at Children’s, and I think we saw him almost every day we were there, including the day she passed. He was instrumental in just providing a comforting presence during a really scary time of unknowns. And you're kind of drinking out of a fire hose when you're in the NICU, because you're having to learn a lot of really in-depth medical information, all while trying to make the right decision for your child. It's just incredibly overwhelming.
And Ayman is just so full of love and grace, and he's just a genuinely good man. That helped us walk through almost six months of just terror and sadness.
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: Taylor, why was it important for you to talk about this and to talk about what Imam Ayman meant for you and your family and the community? I mean, I think a lot of people right now are looking at a lot of cases in this country. They don't know the names, they don't know the stories of the people who are being caught up in this immigration process and all the challenges that are currently out there right now facing people in this immigration system. But why did you feel the need to put your name and your story to this case in the public?
HEATHER MCLEAN: Yeah, and again, thank you so much for having us. Ayman was, like Heather said, from day one, a huge presence in our lives. Our daughter was born at 30 weeks with medical complexities and things were really critical from the very beginning. And throughout her stay at the hospital, we were there for ten months. And Ayman, I'm pretty sure we saw him every single day.
Through that time in her critical condition, Ayman was a huge advocate for our family. As a mom who is not medical, it's kind of hard to get a seat at the table sometimes, especially with all of her medical complexities and all of the teams that were working with our daughter. And so Ayman was kind of that bridge. And any time that I was unsure or there seemed to be question as to what was going to happen in surgery or things like that, Ayman was the first to advocate and make sure that surgeons were in our room, letting us know exactly what was going to happen and making sure everybody was on the same page. So, we can definitely thank Ayman for, you know, our daughter and she’s living today because of his advocacy.
CATHERINE RAMPELL: Allen, we– there are still a lot of things we don't know about this case and why this man was – why he was detained, why his asylum was taken away in the first place. Can you just walk us through how common or uncommon it is for asylum to be revoked years after it's been granted? And under what kinds of circumstances this usually happens, if there is even a usually.
ALLEN ORR: Okay, so first, it’s very uncommon. It’s like one percent of the cases, so there are thousands of cases that are approved every year and only one percent is revoked. And this circumstance is a little bit different because what we noticed from Mr. Soliman, is that he stood up for his rights. He was on a watchlist that he shouldn't have been on and he was mistakenly put on a watchlist, and he sued the government. And it is that retaliation for the error of the government that might have led him to having this problem.
What we do know is he does not represent a threat to our society, as we have seen from your other guests, and that other Americans are going to suffer without having his sort of stewardship to sort of help them in these very difficult process. So it's very uncommon to do and it really doesn't behoove us or immigration to lock him up and detain him, in a place where someone has given so much to our society.
HYLTON: Heather, Ayman touched on this a moment ago. This, you know, feeling that so many in the country have right now is they see videos constantly of people being detained, taken from their communities off of streets and workplaces. When you think about just this single person, Mr. Soliman, what does it represent to the community around Cincinnati to lose someone like this?
BARROW: It's scary. It's– He's a very dedicated interfaith leader in the community. He's very well respected. He's helped thousands of families just like mine and Taylor’s throughout the city, the nation. You know, Cincinnati Children's is the best children's hospital in the country, and they serve people all over the world. So, he's impacted many, many people. And it's scary and sad to see such a good man be treated like this, in an unjust way.
MOHYELDIN: Allen, can I go back to a point that you brought up and it’s almost to kind of separate the case of the individual with the rights of due process here? You know, we don't know exactly as you and others have been talking about, we don't know the case, his asylum and what may have gotten him to this point and why he was ultimately detained. And there are a lot of questions about that.
But at the same time, the fact that people believe he was not granted due process. Can you tell us what are the rights of people? And I think we saw a similar parallel with the case around Kilmer Abrego Garcia. He may not have been the perfect man or the perfect case, but that's even more reason to say you have to ensure due process rights for everyone, even the people in our society who may have a question mark over their behavior or their actions.
(…)
7:23:31 PM ET
HYLTON: Allen, can you also speak a bit – You know, he has been sent to the Butler County Jail. This is a county jail run by a local, actually very controversial sheriff in the state of Ohio that contracts with the government to be able to have ICE detainees. What do you know about sites like this one and the way that immigrants are often treated once they are there?
ORR: So, if your only crime is entering the United States, then you should be returned to your country. You should not be put in torture in the United States. We've seen a vast variety, and I've been to many detention centers close to the border and removed from the border. This is not the way you treat people to put them in places of places where people actually committed real crimes.
(…)
