Federal Prosecutors Drop Charges against Afghan Military Vet Accused of Crossing Southern Border Illegally

Federal prosecutors have dropped the criminal charges against a former Afghanistan special forces soldier and American ally who has been in custody for nearly four months after he was accused of illegally crossing the southern border in late September.

An assistant U.S. attorney asked a judge this week to dismiss the charges against Abdul Wasi Safi “in the interest of justice,” according to the Texas Tribune, which was the first outlet to report Safi’s story. The feds reversed course after some prominent lawmakers and veterans organizations championed the case late last year.

National Review highlighted Safi’s case earlier this month.

Getting the charges dropped and Safi freed was a team effort, said Ben Owen, chief executive of Flanders Fields, a civilian group that has been part of the Afghanistan rescue efforts.

“I’m very glad the FBI found out what we’ve been telling them all along, that he’s a good dude,” Owen told National Review. “I hate that it took as long as it did. I hate that he was denied medical for as long as he was. But at the end of the day, the right thing was done and I’m super happy about that.”

Daniel Elkins, founder of the nonprofit Special Operations Association of America, also welcomed the news and said he applauds the efforts to get Safi released. “However, we are extremely disappointed that it took four months for this to happen,” he said.

Safi, 27, is a former lieutenant and intelligence officer in Afghanistan’s elite special forces who fought alongside American soldiers during the 20-year war in that country. When U.S. forces were pulling out of Afghanistan in August of 2021, Safi tried to get on a flight out of Kabul, but was unsuccessful. He went into hiding, traveling from safehouse to safehouse provided by U.S. veterans’ groups. His brother, Samiullah Safi — a former interpreter for the U.S. military who is now a citizen living in Houston — paid $1,200 for a visa so his brother could escape to Pakistan. But when he got there, he found that the conditions weren’t much better for him.

Wasi Safi eventually obtained a humanitarian visa from Brazil, and made the dangerous journey back to Afghanistan so he could get on a flight from Kabul to South America.

Wasi Safi flew to Brazil in late July. But his brother said that soon after he arrived, he was beaten up, robbed, and extorted by locals who assumed that because he had come all the way from Afghanistan, he must be wealthy.

Safi then joined a caravan of migrants traveling to the U.S. border, where he hoped to make an asylum claim. Over about two months, the group traveled through Colombia, and through a 60-mile roadless jungle known as the Darién Gap, where migrants are often preyed upon by gangs and cartels. Sami Safi said that in the jungle, his brother’s group was hunted by men with bows and arrows. At one point, he said, Panamanian police beat his brother, calling him a terrorist.

Wasi Safi crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. near Eagle Pass, Texas around 4 a.m. on September 30. A Border Patrol agent followed his footprints, and encountered him in dirty and wet clothes, typical of illegal immigrants crossing that section of the border.

Unlike most migrants caught crossing the border, Safi was taken into custody and charged with a misdemeanor for illegally entering the country. He had not presented himself at an official port of entry, and had no valid entry documents, as required by the Immigration and Nationality Act. If convicted, he could have faced up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. A Department of Homeland Security report documenting Safi’s arrest said he would be “processed for an Expedited Removal” from the country.

Safi’s supporters worried that if the federal government returned him to Afghanistan, he would almost certainly be tortured and killed by the Taliban.

On December 21, a coalition of 23 veterans groups sent a joint letter to President Joe Biden asking that he grant Wasi Safi parolee status while he awaits an asylum hearing. Members of Congress, including Republicans Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Michael Waltz of Florida, along with Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas also called for Safi to be released.

“It is clear that in his capacity as a member of the Afghan military, he helped American soldiers,” Lee said of Safi in a recent press release. Announcing that the charges against Safi were dropped, Lee said that “What happened over the last couple of weeks was a strategic and forceful effort to bring all agencies together to make the right decision to free Mr. Safi.”

Owen said that Safi is still struggling with health issues related to his journey and his rough treatment at the hands of Central American authorities. He also said that Safi’s case shows that U.S. border laws aren’t being applied equally.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me that you would detain and federally charge a guy who fought alongside U.S. forces, but release a whole bunch of random and unvetted migrants,” Owen said. “Something needs to be done at the border.”

Owen and Elkins said they believe Safi has already been released and has been reunited with his brother in Houston. Attempts by National Review to reach Sami Safi on Thursday were not successful. Now that the charges have been dismissed, Wasi Safi will start his asylum journey.

“We firmly believe that Wasi has a strong asylum case,” Elkins said. “And we know, definitively, that if he were sent back to Afghanistan, nont only would he be killed, but he would be tortured and made an example of for others who are sympathetic to the American military and worked alongside the American military.”