BOULDER, CO - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has charged Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman with a federal hate crime after he targeted a group of Israeli supporters that were peacefully gathered outside at an outdoor mall in Boulder, Colorado on Sunday, June 2nd.
Law Enforcement Today previously reported that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said that the attack is being investigated as an act of "ideologically motivated violence," based on early information, evidence, and witness accounts of what happened. As the investigation continued, Soliman told investigators that he planned the attack for over a year while living in the United States on a work visa that expired back in 2023.
Newsnation reported that according to Soliman's visa timeline, he came into the United States on a tourist visa in August 2022 and one month later he applied for asylum. Soliman, his wife and their give kids have been living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, ever since.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said that Soliman was in the United States illegally and that his B2 visa had expired in February 2023 and that he was given a work authorization in March 2023 after the tourist visa expired. The work permit expired in March 2025.
A spokesperson for Uber, Soliman's former employer, said that the Egyptian national passed the company's eligibility requirements, which included a criminal background check. Department of Homeland Security data shows that in 2023, approximately 314,000 people overstayed tourist or other temporary visas. Of those individuals, roughly 2,400 were Egyptian.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has placed the blame squarely on the previously administration. "We know that this individual, this terrorist, was allowed into this country by the previous administration, was foolishly given a tourism visa, and then was illegally allowed to stay. These individuals are going to be deported," Leavitt said on Monday, just one day after the incident.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Soliman went disguised as a gardener and told police that his initial plan was to kill all of those at the march. In an affidavit, police wrote that he didn't carry out his full plan "because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before." Police said while investigating him, he did not express any regrets about the attack.
He told police that he was driven by a desire "to kill all Zionist people," and that he had specifically planned to target a "Zionist group." The attack came on the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and as the Israeli-Hamas war continues.
"This attack was not random. It was a deliberate hate crime against the Jewish community that was planned for months," Sen. John Hickenlooper said Tuesday on the Senate floor in the U.S. capitol, as he referred to the Boulder attack.
"The scope of that hatred is unconscionable. These were men and women who dedicated their time to advocating for innocent hostages, who have been now held in captivity for over 600 days," he added. There were a total of 12 people injured, a number that climbed from the original eight that were first reported, including a Holocaust survivor.
The 12 people that were hurt in the attack were demonstrators with Run for Their Lives, an organization that stages events globally since 2023 and call for Hamas to release Israeli hostages. Soliman had a total of 18 Molotov cocktails, but threw just two of them during the attack. The two incendiary devices that he threw into the group of about 20 were enough to injure more than half of them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned terrorist and terrorist sympathizers in the United States on a visa that this type of violence will not be tolerated. "Under the Trump administration we will find you, revoke your visa, and deport you," he said. Tracking overstays on visas is a challenging thing to do.
Following the attack, DHS revamped its Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line, asking for the public's help in identifying those overstaying their welcome.
"Yesterday's terrorist attack by a suspect illegally in our country underscores the importance of getting these illegal aliens out of our country," said McLaughlin. "Secretary Noem is revamping ICE's illegal alien tip line to devote more resources and personnel to help remove these criminal illegal aliens from our country," she added.
