Eighteen-year-old ICE detainee Habiba Soliman found a fingernail in her food Thursday while detained at Dilley’s South Texas Family Residential Center, according to her attorney Eric Lee.
Lee said Soliman was “fed a nail” in her breakfast Thursday morning at approximately 6 a.m. She had eaten part of the meal when she discovered the fingernail in her fruit, Lee told the Current.
Soliman’s claim follows other reports from children and families of food with mold, worms and bugs in it at the facility. People held inside the site have also complained about foul-smelling drinking water.
“These families are being detained in inhuman conditions,” Lee said. “The food is already barely edible, now the children have to parse through all their meals looking for fingernails and God knows what else in their food. This is not civil detention, this is punishment.”
There are no photos allowed inside the facility located about an hour southwest of San Antonio. As such, Soliman was unable to provide a photo of the nail or the meal.
The Current reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, and CoreCivic, the private immigration detention company that runs the facility, about Soliman’s allegation.
A DHS official confirmed the agency received a complaint from the detainee about finding a nail in her food. However, the official offered no other statement on the matter by press time.
Two hours after the unappetizing discovery, Soliman was taken to the medical facility on premises, where the nurse told her, “If you didn’t eat the nail, you’re fine,” according to Lee.
In observance of Ramadan, Soliman — a practicing Muslim — was eating the customary pre-dawn meal of suhoor on Thursday before fasting until sunset. However, she ate only part of the meal before discovering the nail and losing her appetite, Lee said.
“She’s extremely distraught,” Lee said.
Soliman, her mother and four younger siblings have been detained for eight months. Upon turning 18, Soliman was separated from the rest of her family, a move that Lee maintains was made in retaliation for speaking with the press.
The family, originally from Egypt, immigrated to the United States in 2023 from Kuwait and applied for asylum. Lee claims that deportation to Egypt could potentially be a death sentence for the family.
The Solimans were detained at Dilley following a violent antisemitic attack by their estranged father, Mohamed Soliman, in Boulder, Colorado, on June 1. His family maintains that they knew nothing of his plans to attack a Jewish group with Molotov cocktails, injuring eight.
Lee said that since the attack, the family has been punished as an act of political retribution for what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, FBI chief Kash Patel and U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller referred to as an act of “terrorism.”
“A terror attack was committed in Boulder, Colorado, by an illegal alien,” Miller posted on X following the attack. “He was granted a tourist visa by the Biden Administration and then he illegally overstayed that visa. In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit. Suicidal migration must be fully reversed.”
“It’s the Stephen Miller special,” Lee said, adding that he sees the White House’s targeting of the family as punishment for the alleged sins of the father.
Mohamed Soliman awaits criminal trial in Colorado on numerous hate crime charges and has no contact with the rest of the family. His wife Hayam El Gamal is also seeking a divorce.
An immigration bond hearing and two habeas petitions for the mother and children have been unsuccessful. The family now awaits its third habeas hearing. Each of the family’s children — twin 5-year-olds, a 9-year-old, a 16-year-old and Habiba — have had a birthday inside the facility. Prior to being detained, Habiba showed promise as a new graduate and soon-to-be medical student, according to the Denver Gazette.
Lee went viral for a series of videos he posted to Twitter from outside Dilley in January when an inmate protest broke out inside the facility while he was visiting the Soliman family. Thanks to Lee’s footage, the world saw as hundreds of detainees flooded the courtyard protesting the conditions inside, chanting “let us out” and “libertad.”
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