By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
(CNN) — June 1 began as an ordinary day for Habiba Soliman: Her mother was doing some work in a cafe, her brother Omar was on an afternoon hike with friends, and she was babysitting her 8-year-old sister and 4-year-old twin siblings at home.
Then the teenager, 17 at the time, saw police cars swarm her neighborhood, she wrote in a statement.
Confusion grew as her father’s phone rang at home, even though he was supposed to be at work, Habiba wrote. When her mother, Hayam El Gamal, arrived home, she was escorted by authorities to the police station. According to her statement, Habiba and her brother Omar, alarmed by the seriousness of the situation, dug through local news headlines until they found one about their father and they couldn’t believe their eyes.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman had allegedly attacked demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado at a Jewish event supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza with a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, according to federal prosecutors. The attack wounded at least 29 people and an 82-year-old woman later died from her injuries.
He’s facing more than 100 charges related to the incident, including murder. Soliman pleaded not guilty to state charges, and his attorney asked for a jury trial slated to begin in the summer. He also pleaded not guilty to the federal hate crime charges.
The Egyptian man told detectives after he was arrested that “no one” knew about his attack plans and that “he never talked to his wife or family about it,” according to the affidavit for his arrest. El Gamal also said she and her children were unaware of his plans.
Despite that declaration, Soliman’s wife and children were detained and transferred to the South Texas Family Residential Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Dilley, Texas. El Gamal previously said immigration officers told them they were “being punished” with detainment for the crimes of which her husband is accused.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN last week the agency is “investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” echoing the same message DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said shortly after the June attack.
Now, the family, including four minors, is fighting a difficult and complex battle both in immigration court and inside the detention center.
In a phone interview with CNN from the facility, the family described what they call grim conditions: despondent children, denial of critical medical care, and inadequate nutrition – concerns also raised by other families at the Dilley center.
The center is the same facility where a 5-year-old boy, who was taken by federal agents from the driveway of his metro Minneapolis home last week after returning from preschool, is being held with his father, according to school district officials and a family attorney.
“We are fighting because we know we are innocent,” Habiba wrote in her statement from detention, adding, “We pray for someone to look at us not as the family of a man who is accused of terrorism, but as human