Hayam El Gamal and her five children, ranging in age from five to 18 years old, had been held for 10 months prior to their release earlier this week following a judge’s order. They had been held in detention for the longest of any known family during Trump’s second term in office. According to their lawyer. Just days after returning to their home in Colorado, immigration authorities again detained the family on Saturday and sought to swiftly deport them.

Legal Battle and Court Orders

The family’s lawyers. Represented by attorney Eric Lee, stated in a shared statement that the Trump administration had “kidnapped” the El Gamal family in violation of a federal court order from the Western District of Texas, which ordered them Thursday not to detain or remove the family from the United States. The statement added that the attempt to remove the family was in violation of the court order and must be halted immediately.

Lee said shortly after that US District Judge Fred Biery, who ordered the family’s initial release on Thursday, had granted an emergency order on Saturday barring their removal. A Texas federal judge ruled that the family, believed to be the longest held at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, should not immediately be deported after immigration agents suddenly re-arrested the mother and her children hours earlier.

Attempted Deportation and Last-Minute Reversal

The attempted deportation of the El Gamal family came to a last-minute reversal when a flight carrying the family to Michigan abruptly turned around after a Texas judge ruled that the six should remain in the U.S. pending further litigation. The attorney, Michigan-based Eric Lee, posted on X that the flight “constitutionally cannot be allowed to take off.” The government had planned to quickly deport them to Egypt, where their attorneys said the mother and her children fear persecution.

This incident is not the first time that Trump’s administration has deported immigrants after federal judges ordered against their removal. Among the most well-known cases is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, who was living in Maryland before he was mistakenly sent to a notorious mega-prison in that Central American country last year, despite an earlier U.S. court order barring Abrego Garcia’s deportation. His case spurred global criticism, although he has since returned to the U.S., as litigation in his case is ongoing.

Broader Immigration Context

Lee, the Gamal family attorney, posted on X earlier Saturday, urging, “Stop this travesty of justice from taking place,” referring to the El Gamal family. The Trump administration has at times flouted court orders barring it from deporting people from the U.S., pushing a hardline approach that critics say has defied legal constraints. That has come amid a wider campaign to restrict immigration, legal and illegal, particularly from non-Western countries.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.