Even among the many sobering stories of cruelty and injustice arising from the Trump administration’s obsessive anti-immigration crusade, the story of Mohammad Ali Dadfar stands out.

An Afghanistan native who risked his life to aid America in its war there, Dadfar was living and working legally in the U.S., raising his family and patiently navigating the complex process of earning asylum here, when immigration officials in October arrested him without explanation. He then spent almost two months in a Missouri jail cell awaiting possible deportation back into the clutches of a Taliban that wants him dead.

Dadfar, 37, was finally ordered released on Monday by a federal judge who found the government had violated his rights with his warrantless arrest. But now Dadfar’s continuing quest to remain safely in the country he aided in war is again under threat, as the Trump administration — exploiting the tragic shootings of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., last month — widens its relentless persecution of immigrants to include those who are here legally and have committed no crimes.

President Donald Trump had initially justified his immigration crackdown as being aimed at those who enter America illegally and then commit violent crimes here — the “worst of the worst,” as he has put it. None of that describes Dadfar’s case.

During America’s war in Afghanistan, Dadfar was a security officer with the U.S.-allied Afghan government, traveling and working with American troops fighting the Taliban. After the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover in 2021, Dadfar fled the country with his wife and four young children ahead of specific death threats he had received from the newly empowered terrorist organization.

The family settled in Colorado and began the process of seeking U.S. asylum. By all accounts, they were doing everything right. As the process inched along, Dadfar obtained a work permit and a job as a trucker.

It was while driving through Indiana on Oct. 10 that he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was put in custody at the Greene County Jail in Springfield, Missouri, pending possible deportation.

There was no warrant, no explanation given, no allegation of a crime — nothing at all except a form generated by ICE in which the agency makes the unlikely claim that Dadfar told agents he didn’t believe his life would be in danger if he returned to Afghanistan.

As reported by the Colorado news site The Daily Camera, one of Dadfar’s lawyers said Dadfar wasn’t ever asked that question — and noted that, if he had been, it would “make no sense” for him to answer like that, given his years-long quest for asylum and written evidence of the Taliban death threat against him.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool of the Western District of Missouri finally ordered Dadfar released. He ruled that the warrantless arrest and continued detention violated Dadfar’s Fifth Amendment right to due process. He further ruled that ICE violated its own procedures by locking Dadfar up for no specified reason as he was properly following the process of seeking asylum.

Dadfar reportedly is back in Colorado, hoping to resume his asylum process. That might sound like a just conclusion. But in fact, through no fault of their own, the injustice may not be over for Dadfar and others like him.

On Nov. 26, a different Afghan national, who had been granted asylum by the Trump administration in April, allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., killing one of them. The troops had been stationed there as part of Trump’s indefensible militarization of America’s cities.

The tragedy had nothing to do with Dadfar or, apparently, any other Afghan refugee. To suggest otherwise merely because of the alleged killer’s nationality and immigration status is bigotry, plain and simple.

Yet, predictably enough, the administration now is leveraging the shootings to halt all immigration and asylum cases for Afghanistan nationals — and more broadly “to limit migration, both illegal and legal,” in the words of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

For years, Trump has eagerly peddled the vicious lie that immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes than natural-born Americans; statistically, the opposite remains true. One alleged murderer doesn't change that, no matter where he's from.

It also remains true that Dadfar and others like him, who were there when America needed them, are overwhelmingly deserving of the chance at a new life here. Instead, he is among a great many immigration stories that should shame every American for what is being done in our names by our government.

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