a gay man who grew up in phoenix was deported to equatorial guinea and locked up. a federal judge just ordered the government to go get him. at its own expense.

via the court's order, The American Prospect and the Arizona Daily Star

The government's travel document for sending Ahmed Soliman to Equatorial Guinea was, according to its own declaration quoted in the court's order, his name on the flight manifest. That was it. No notice of where he was going, no chance to tell a judge why that country might be dangerous for a gay man. On Tuesday a federal judge in Arizona said that was unconstitutional and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to bring him back.

who he is

Soliman, 31, was born in Egypt and brought to the United States at age 4, and grew up in Phoenix, according to the Prospect and the Daily Star. He lost his immigration status after a DUI crash, and was sentenced in 2023. In October 2025 an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported to Egypt under the Convention Against Torture, based on his being gay and on persecution of his family there. That protection, the order notes, "remains in effect."

So instead of Egypt, DHS put him on a deportation flight to Equatorial Guinea, a country he had no connection to, in April. Both newsrooms report he has been held incommunicado there since a Sept. 11 arrest. His family has been left waiting "without any assurance that he is safe," his lawyer Jesse Evans-Schroeder said in a statement quoted by the Daily Star, "or even still alive."

what the judge ordered

U.S. District Judge John C. Hinderaker's 22-page order, dated Oct. 6, finds that removing Soliman "without notice of the country of removal and a meaningful opportunity to raise a country-specific claim" violated the Fifth Amendment. DHS "must facilitate Plaintiff's release from custody in Equatorial Guinea and return to the United States," including a boarding letter and transportation to a U.S. port of entry "at Defendants' expense." The government is also barred from helping move him from Equatorial Guinea to Egypt, and has to file status reports within three days and every seven days after that.

The government argued the order would intrude on the executive's conduct of foreign affairs. "The Court is not persuaded," Hinderaker wrote, and he denied its request for a stay pending appeal. He did add, almost politely, that nothing in the order "directs the manner in which Defendants conduct diplomatic relations with Equatorial Guinea." Get him out however you like. Just get him out.

"We all frankly broke into tears of relief, and hope," his lawyer Dana Camilleri told the Daily Star. To the Prospect she added: "I'm a little cautious, honestly." Fair. The government can still appeal, and a court order is not a plane.

His case is one name in a bigger pattern we wrote about last week: queer migrants protected from one country and shipped to another they have never seen.