Ahmed Soliman is now ticketed to return to the United States on November 4. He is booked on Royal Air Maroc from Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, through Casablanca to Washington Dulles, according to a sworn declaration from ICE Deportation Officer Andrea Chiriboga Villacis filed in his federal case in Arizona. In an October 30 status report, government lawyers told the court that “authorization and logistics are in place for the return.”

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

This is a new development in a case this newsroom has followed since October. On October 6, U.S. District Judge John C. Hinderaker, sitting in Tucson, ruled that Soliman's April removal to Equatorial Guinea — a country where he has no ties — violated the Fifth Amendment, and ordered the government to facilitate his release and return. On October 23 and 24, the case produced a public dispute over a government-contracted Boeing 767 that landed in Malabo a day after an ICE officer had sworn the anticipated flight was cancelled; the plane left without Soliman, and his lawyers called the sworn account “plainly false.” The November 4 booking is the first concrete return ticket disclosed since that order.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

The judge's October 29 ultimatum

On October 29, Judge Hinderaker issued an 18-page order criticizing the government's repeated failure to provide information he had demanded. “Defendants appear to bristle at their obligation to follow the Court's explicit orders,” he wrote. Twenty-three days after ordering Soliman's return, the judge noted, the government still had not stated where Soliman is held or what his physical condition is, despite three orders to provide that information.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

Hinderaker scheduled an in-person hearing for 2 p.m. on November 2, in his Tucson courtroom. Government counsel and Deportation Officer Chiriboga Villacis were ordered to attend in person — unless the government produced evidence by noon that day that reasonably satisfied the court that Soliman would be on the November 4 flight. The sworn flight declaration and the October 30 status report were the government's answer to that deadline.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

His lawyers' November 1 emergency motion: what happens when he lands?

On November 1, Soliman's attorneys filed another emergency motion, this time seeking to question the ICE officer about what happens after Soliman lands in the United States. Will ICE detain him again? Where will he spend the night? Will he receive medical care? Does the government intend to transfer him to Louisiana, where ICE held him before his April removal? His attorneys also want answers about his parole authorization, which expires November 11, and about what happens if his unescorted return flight is disrupted. At the time of the filing, the court had not yet ruled on that emergency motion.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

How a Phoenix man ended up detained in Equatorial Guinea

Soliman grew up in Phoenix. His family brought him from Egypt in 1998, when he was a small child, and he became a lawful permanent resident in 2021. In October 2023 he was convicted of aggravated assault and possession of a synthetic narcotic and sentenced to two and a half years; the Arizona Daily Star reports the case grew out of a 2021 car crash while he was on fentanyl. That conviction is why the government moved to deport him. On October 1, 2025, an immigration judge ordered him removed to Egypt but, in the same decision, granted him deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, finding he faced a clear probability of torture in Egypt. The Department of Homeland Security did not appeal that protection.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

On April 24, 2026, Soliman filed a habeas petition asking a federal court to block any third-country removal without notice. Four days later, before the court ruled, ICE put him on a charter flight to Equatorial Guinea. From Judge Hinderaker's October 6 order: “Plaintiff was not told his destination until shortly before the flight; when he asked for a fear interview, he was told it was too late, and he was carried onto the aircraft.” The government's explanation, sworn by an ICE acting unit chief, was that Equatorial Guinea had given “diplomatic assurances” that deportees would not be persecuted or tortured, and that the State Department found them credible.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

In Malabo, U.S. officials handed Soliman to Equatorial Guinean authorities, who held him with other U.S. deportees under armed guard at the decommissioned Hotel Bamy. The court record, which the government contested none of, states that detainees were beaten and told they could be killed and buried where nobody would find them; that on July 31 armed and masked officers dragged Soliman and four others from their rooms and assaulted them; that on September 5 police aimed rifles at him while he knelt with his hands raised; and that on September 11 he was arrested, bound with rope, hooded and beaten, with no charges known to have been filed. His attorneys say he has since been hospitalized twice and that his health has “deteriorated drastically.” Judge Hinderaker summarized: “It is unrebutted that he has since been held under armed guard; threatened at gunpoint; and arrested, beaten, and held incommunicado by Equatorial Guinean authorities.”

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

What the October 6 ruling did — and did not — order

Hinderaker ruled the removal violated the Fifth Amendment's due-process guarantee: “Here, most importantly, Defendants have not identified any process Plaintiff received before they removed him to Equatorial Guinea.” He ordered the government to “facilitate” — not “effectuate” — Soliman's return, following the standard the Supreme Court approved in the Abrego Garcia case: travel documents including a boarding letter, transportation to a U.S. port of entry at government expense, and admission or parole on arrival. The order barred any transfer of Soliman to Egypt and kept his torture-protection in place. The government has appealed to the Ninth Circuit, case No. 26-6950, and the Arizona Daily Star reports DHS has asked that court for an emergency stay; absent a stay, Hinderaker has said he keeps jurisdiction to enforce his judgment. Asked about the earlier flight, a DHS spokesperson sent the Star a seven-word reply: “DHS complies with all lawful court orders.”

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker

The case is being closely watched well beyond Arizona because it tests the limits of third-country removals — deporting a person to a country that is not their own, without notice or a chance to object — at a time when such removals have expanded. For diaspora families, including Punjabi families in the United States with relatives in removal proceedings, the rulings in Tucson set out two practical protections the court enforced here: a person must be told which country they are being sent to, and they must get a meaningful chance to raise a fear claim before a neutral judge before any future third-country removal.

What happens next: if the November 4 itinerary holds, Soliman will fly unescorted from Malabo to Washington Dulles through Casablanca — his first return to the United States since April. What remains undecided is everything his lawyers asked about on November 1: whether ICE will detain him on arrival, where he will be held or released, what medical care he will receive, and whether the government will again seek his removal through a lawful process with notice and a hearing, as the October 6 order requires for any future third-country removal.

Source: Court filings in A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601-JCH (D. Ariz.), via AshTalks court tracker