Two chaplains at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital are out of jobs after supporting a former colleague who U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently detained.
The chaplains were fired after allegedly violating hospital policy and publicly supporting Imam Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian national whom the FBI had flagged. ICE agents took him into custody after an immigration check-in on July 9 in Blue Ash.
One Children’s Hospital chaplain, Lizzy Diop, spoke to the news several times, and another chaplain, Adam Allen, attended the July 17 demonstration on Roebling Bridge that resulted in multiple arrests.
Lizzy Diop talked to us on July 14, one day after speaking with Ayman Soliman at the Butler County Jail. She said two of her superiors were aware that she was participating in the interview. Yesterday, she was fired. https://t.co/leYFrgV4kh
— WCPO 9 (@WCPO) July 22, 2025
Allen wore a shirt to the event that said, “I do not represent Cincinnati Children’s Hospital,” WCPO 9 News reported.
Federal immigration officials took Soliman into custody earlier this month, after revoking his asylum status in June, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. U.S. officials claim he previously worked for a charity in Egypt with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and flagged him as a terrorist threat.
Soliman, 51, remains at the Butler County Jail after a bond hearing Tuesday. He will remain jailed until at least July 29, pending an immigration judge’s decision on his bond request.
Soliman fled his home country of Egypt in 2014, according to federal court records, and received asylum status in June 2018. Soliman worked for several years as a Muslim chaplain at Children’s and a volunteer imam at Clifton Mosque, The Enquirer reported.
Soliman sued federal officials several times in recent years. In 2022, he claimed they had violated his constitutional rights and his privacy by disclosing “stigmatizing statements about him.”
In one lawsuit, Soliman alleged that he applied for a job as a prison chaplain and later learned an “FBI flag” appeared on his background check. He said in the lawsuit that his fingerprints did not match prints that the check turned up on the government’s terrorism screening database, The Enquirer reported.
The Children’s Hospital chaplains, Diop and Allen, spoke with WCPO on Thursday, July 24 about their firing.
“I don’t regret this,” Diop told WCPO. “I regret that the hospital fired me, I regret their silence in the matter. I’m a chaplain, right? I don’t regret that God called me to do justice, love, kindness.”
Diop spoke with WCPO multiple times, including following a conversation with Soliman while he was in the Butler County jail. Diop was fired a few days later, even though she said she didn’t comment on their work together or that she was representing the hospital.
“I felt I had permission,” Diop said. “I’m not sure they would describe it as permission.”
WCPO contacted Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, asking if they could confirm that Diop was fired because of her interview with WCPO 9, and for a copy of their employee media policy.
They replied with a statement: “We don’t comment on current or former personnel.”
Allen, who joined Children’s Hospital in 2022, also lost his job. Allen told WCPO he was terminated on Monday, July 21, after he participated in a July 17 prayer vigil and rally for Soliman.
The gathering turned into an impromptu march over the Roebling Bridge and ended in the arrest of 15 people, including two journalists, WCPO previously reported.
Covington police said the arrests came after people “obstructed traffic and created safety concerns for both demonstrators and the public.”
Allen joined a group of around 100 activists who took to the Roebling Bridge after the vigil. He did not get arrested that evening.
Allen maintains that whenever he made public comments, on social media or otherwise, he emphasized he was speaking on his own behalf.
“There was an HR meeting with our department to discuss media policies,” Allen told WCPO. “I understood from that meeting that I shouldn’t be a speaker. I could be misrepresented in the media as being a representative of the hospital. So, I wore a shirt to the event that said, ‘I do not represent Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.'”
WCPO contacted a First Amendment attorney who said the First Amendment protects speech against the government or public governmental entities. It doesn’t protect people from getting fired by private employers or entities, particularly “at will” employment.
Soliman alleges he has been wrongfully targeted because of his Muslim faith. Soliman and his lawyers deny the claim he worked for a charity, known as ASG or ASJ, that is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Nazly Mamedova, one of Soliman’s immigration attorneys, told The Enquirer his asylum officer claimed one of the charity’s 1,300 branches helped the Muslim Brotherhood in some capacity. It wasn’t the branch where Soliman worked, she said, but the accusation was enough to revoke his asylum
Egypt considers the Muslim Brotherhood a radical Islamic terrorist organization, but the United State does not. President Donald Trump, who has accused the group of supporting terrorism, tried and failed during his first term to change its designation.
Government officials have disputed his accusations and denied wrongdoing, saying little else about the case. A social media post by Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said Soliman was “flagged on the FBI terror watchlist.”
A judge dismissed some of Soliman’s claims earlier this year, but two lawsuits remain unresolved, The Enquirer reported.
Soliman’s former colleagues said they stand by their decision to advocate for his release. His supporters, including local clergy, politicians and representatives from Ignite Peace, said Soliman fears persecution if ICE sent him back to Egypt.
He fled the country more than a decade ago. Friends said he still has family in Egypt, including a child, but is unable to return because his life would be in danger.
“I don’t think most of us have a situation where we have a co-worker that’s going to be deported and killed,” Allen told WCPO. “I only regret not being louder, louder about Ayman’s situation.”
