BOULDER, Colo. — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the government to immediately halt deportation proceedings against the family of a man charged in the firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, to ensure the protection of the family’s constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher granted a request from the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who are Egyptian, to block their deportation. U.S. immigration officials took the family into custody Tuesday.

“The court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must issue without notice due to the urgency this situation presents,” Gallagher wrote.

Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder in the attack in downtown Boulder on Sunday. Witnesses say he threw two Molotov cocktails at a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and he confessed to the attack in custody.

His family members have not been charged.

Federal authorities have said Soliman has been living in the U.S. illegally, and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said earlier Wednesday that the family was being processed for removal. It’s rare that a criminal suspect’s family members are detained and threatened with deportation.

“It is patently unlawful to punish individuals for the crimes of their relatives,” attorneys for the family wrote in the lawsuit.

Eric Lee, one of the attorney’s representing the family, said efforts to deport them should not happen in a democracy.

“The punishment of a four-year-old child for something their parent allegedly did, who also has a presumption of innocence, is something that should outrage Americans regardless of their citizenship status,” he said.

Emails, a text and a telephone call seeking comment from spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington and Colorado have not been returned.

Soliman’s wife, Hayam El Gamal, 18-year-old daughter, two minor sons and two minor daughters all are Egyptian citizens, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. They were being held at an immigration detention center in Texas, Lee said.

“We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” Noem said in a statement.