Afghan who fought with US special forces dies in ICE custody as Trump on track for deadliest year of detention in more than two decades
An Afghan man who fought with U.S. forces and was legally evacuated to the U.S. after the fall of Kabul died this week within a day of being arrested by federal immigration officers in Texas, according to his family.
The reported death would be at least the 24th in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody this fiscal year, which began in October. The administration is on track for the deadliest year in ICE detention in more than two decades.
Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal, 41, was preparing to drive his kids to school in the Dallas area on Friday when agents in unmarked vehicles allegedly surrounded him and arrested him in front of his children.
Later that day, the former Afghan special forces soldier contacted family members from ICE custody to say he wasn’t feeling well, they said. Around 11:45pm on Friday night, he was allegedly admitted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Around noon the following day, family members said they were informed he had died.
“It’s unacceptable,” Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, an advocacy group that’s been in touch with Paktyawal’s family, said in an interview with The Independent.
“This man fought our war for 10 years,” VanDiver added. “He had six kids, one of whom is an American citizen. He was brought here by the United States of America. He’s been working hard in Texas, paying taxes … He was doing everything right.”
Paktyawal had been working at an Afghan bakery and had a pending asylum case, including a completed interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to #AfghanEvac.
The Independent has sought comment from Parkland Hospital, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
USCIS deferred questions to ICE.
VanDiver is calling for an independent investigation into the death, and said he has little trust DHS will be transparent about the case, given its record of making misleading claims in advance of hard evidence.
“This is the problem with DHS when you can’t trust a thing they say,” VanDiver said. “They lie to use every day. Chances are, the first thing they tell us is going to be a lie.”
He alleged Paktyawal and other Afghans have been singled out because of their heritageto keep up with President Donald Trump’s goal of unprecedented deportations.
VanDiver said he’s been tracking “thousands” of cases where Afghans were able to successfully legally challenge their arrests using habeas corpus requests and be released from detention, a sign they were taken in on flimsy grounds.
Immigration analysts were alarmed by another apparent death in custody under the Trump administration.
