Ester Soliman and her son, Sam Soliman, cook in the Saint James Episcopal Church kitchen in Lancaster, Pa., on Nov. 9, 2024. ICE detained Ester Soliman on Aug. 4, 2025.
Brian Nguyen
ICE offers more details on arrest of Lancaster woman while city rallies around her
Ester Soliman was in the U.S. for 25 years. Then she got a traffic ticket and was arrested by ICE.
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Jordan Wilkie/WITF
Brian Nguyen
Ester Soliman and her son, Sam Soliman, cook in the Saint James Episcopal Church kitchen in Lancaster, Pa., on Nov. 9, 2024. ICE detained Ester Soliman on Aug. 4, 2025.
Federal immigration officials on Monday provided more information on why they detained a Lancaster woman who had been living in the United States for 25 years.
Estrelita Soliman-Ramos came from the Philippines to the U.S. on a tourist visa that expired March 4, 2000, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Over 25 years later, she is still illegally in the U.S. A judge issued her a final order of removal in 2011, and her appeal was denied,” Tricia McLaughlin, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s public communications, said Monday.
Ester Soliman, as her family calls her, has lived in Lancaster all that time with her three children; her husband, Albert S. Soliman, died in 2015, according to a death notice published in LNP.
ICE detained Soliman on Aug. 4 when she reported for a meeting under the Alternatives to Detention program at the agency’s York office. Soliman is being held at Clinton County Correctional Facility, according to ICE’s online lookup tool. She is currently one of over 200 detainees, according to a daily list of the facility’s detainees posted online.
ICE uses the Alternatives to Detention program to monitor immigration cases “where detention is not necessary or appropriate,” according to their website.
The federal government’s enforcement of deportation orders has changed under President Donald Trump.
“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,” McLaughlin said.
People in Lancaster have rallied around the Soliman family. Since the family posted a GoFundMe on Thursday to cover legal expenses, over $82,000 had been raised as of Monday afternoon, exceeding the original goal of $35,000.
Through a spokesperson, the family declined to comment while they seek legal counsel. They did post a statement on the fundraising page online.
“It is clear that our mom, Ester, is loved and missed by many people, not just by us,” said the statement from Sam, Sanjee and Sandra Soliman, Ester Soliman’s three children.
Cindy Lam, president of Lancaster Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a community building and affiliation group, said Ester Soliman has been an important part of the community.
“Like every good mom, Ester has made incredible sacrifices to give her children the best life possible in the United States,” Lam said. “We continue to hope and pray for her speedy return to her family, where she belongs.”
Traffic tickets and allegations of arrests without records
On July 28, 2025, Soliman was pulled over by Mannheim Township police and she was issued two citations for improper safety restraints for a child under four years and for driving without a license. She was then allowed to drive away, according to Mannheim Township Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Barry Waltz, Jr.
The police department does not typically share information with ICE regarding the immigration status of people arrested or cited, Waltz said. That only happens if the department determines if the person pulled over in a traffic stop has an active warrant or detainer from ICE, Waltz said.
He referred questions to ICE about whether Soliman had a warrant or detainer. He did not respond to a question about whether Manheim Township police communicated with ICE regarding Soliman’s citations.
The traffic tickets are the only records for Estrelita Soliman under any variant of her name in the state’s online court system. The tickets were summary offenses, or the state’s lowest-level charges, amounting to a total of $522 in fines. According to court records, both tickets were closed with no remaining balance due on July 31.
In her statement, McLaughlin called Soliman “a criminal illegal alien from the Philippines” and alleged, “Her criminal history includes two arrests for theft.”
WITF searched the state’s court system and newspaper archives and found no information about Soliman being arrested for theft or any other non-traffic matter.
ICE did not respond to requests for more information about the arrests for theft.
Attorney analysis
Because Soliman was issued a final removal order by a judge in 2011, and Soliman’s appeal was denied, ICE has the right to detain and remove her, according to Troy Mattes, a Lancaster-based immigration attorney. In previous administrations, Soliman’s case may have been a low priority, but the climate has shifted under Trump.
“They’re looking at any possibility of deporting anyone they can,” Mattes said.
For Soliman’s family to keep her in the country, time is of the essence. They will need to take legal action to ask the government and immigration courts to reopen Soliman’s case, Mattes said. That Soliman’s daughter is a U.S. citizen sponsoring a green card application for her mother gives the family a path of relief to allow her to stay.
ICE’s allegations of arrests for theft may complicate that attempt.
“If there’s any kind of conviction or guilty plea or something, it’ll be very difficult to convince both ICE and a judge to reopen the case,” Mattes said.
The traffic tickets on their own are not usually significant for an immigration case, according to Craig Shagin, a Harrisburg-based immigration attorney.
But unlike previous administrations, ICE under Trump isn’t setting priorities, Shagin said. They’re deporting everybody, he said.
“They’re certainly being very, very aggressive about detaining people in ways that I’ve never seen other administrations do,” Shagin said.
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