A San Diego-based group that supports the resettlement of Afghan wartime allies in the United States said Saturday that it is “deeply concerned” over federal immigration officials’ arrest and detainment of an Afghan man in Texas.
According to AfghanEvac, federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers last month arrested a former Afghan National Army soldier at his home in the Houston area.
The man, whose name was unavailable, “had previously been granted asylum protections, but those were revoked under the (Trump) administration’s new executive orders,” the group stated in a news release.
“AfghanEvac has learned that ICE carried out the arrest with no apparent individualized threat assessment, despite the subject’s known cooperation with U.S. forces and absence of any criminal record.”
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— #AfghanEvac (@afghanevac) June 7, 2025AfghanEvac said it is calling on Congress, along with veterans and military family members, “to exercise oversight and demand an end to the criminalization of our allies. We also urge media outlets to spotlight the real consequences of these policy changes.”
Shawn VanDiver, AfghanEvac president and board chairman, said the man arrived in the United States “under parole after being evacuated by the U.S. government in August 2021.”
“He has no criminal history. He has a pending application for asylum,” VanDiver added. “He was trained by the United States military, fought alongside U.S. troops and fled for his life after the Taliban regained control. Despite having followed the rules, he was still targeted and detained. Now he’s sitting in a detention center in Texas.
“This is the human cost of political theater,” VanDiver added. “This is not how we treat those who stood beside us. What message does this send to future allies?”
VanDiver told City News Service on Saturday that he met with U.S. Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, regarding the Afghan soldier’s situation.
Peters’ support has been “extraordinary,” VanDiver added.
According to a Houston PBS report published Tuesday, the man’s attorney said the man “and most of his family are being threatened with deportation.”
“He has eight kids,” immigration attorney Ali Zakaria told KPBS. “Two of those kids were born in the U.S. during the last four years.”
Zakaria “declined to provide his client’s name, citing safety concerns,” Houston KPBS reported.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday, according to the station.
Zakaria told KPBS that he was “contacted by a former U.S. contractor on behalf of his client, telling Zakaria his client had saved the contractor’s life while the contractor was working in Kandahar.”
U.S. House Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and two other House members in March sent a letter to President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, “urging them not to end protections for Afghans who had aided the U.S. during the war in their country.”
A nonprofit group formed after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, AfghanEvac describes itself as administering a coalition “focused on deconflicting communications, effort and systemic issues across the full enterprise of efforts focused on helping Afghans evacuate and resettle safely, swiftly and within the bounds of the law.”
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