Twenty-Three Hours
Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, an Afghan father of six who had worked alongside the US military in Afghanistan and was applying for asylum, died less than twenty-four hours after Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him outside his apartment in suburban Dallas.
#bureaucratic cruelty #deportation machinery
Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, age forty-one, was preparing to take his children to school on a Friday morning when a group of masked men drove up to his apartment complex in Richardson, Texas, and placed him in handcuffs. He had worked alongside the US military in Afghanistan, had no known health conditions, and was applying for US asylum. He died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody less than twenty-four hours after his arrest.
ICE described the deceased man, in its initial public statement, as a “criminal illegal alien from Afghanistan” and said the cause of death was under investigation. The phrase “criminal illegal alien” was not accompanied by reference to any specific charge, conviction, or proceeding.
Paktyawal left six children. He was not in custody long enough for any of the procedural mechanisms the United States nominally extends to asylum applicants to begin to function.