Colorado Democrats are calling on federal immigration authorities to release an Afghan immigrant who helped U.S. troops fight the Taliban before moving to Boulder County, calling his treatment “cruel and inhumane.”
Mohammad Ali Dadfar, who worked in the Afghan Army for 14 years and provided security for U.S. soldiers, was detained during an ICE sting in Indiana as he drove through the Midwest while working as a long-haul truck driver. He has been in a Missouri detention center for nearly a month.
Dadfar had been granted humanitarian parole because it was too dangerous for him to return to his home country and he was seeking asylum through regular appearances in immigration court, according to his Longmont attorney, Tiago Guevara.
U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat whose district includes Boulder County, called the actions of federal immigration officials “deplorable.” Neguse’s office has spoken to Dadfar’s attorney and will help try to secure his release, he said.
“The detainment of Mohammad Dadfar — an Afghan ally who risked his life alongside American troops to fight the Taliban — is a disgrace, and yet another example of this administration’s draconian immigration policies,” Neguse said in an emailed statement. “My office is in touch directly with Mr. Dadfar’s legal counsel, and we are committed to taking all legal steps to ensure his safety and secure his release.”
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who is a former Army Ranger and who served in Afghanistan, said he “might not be here today” without the Afghans who served alongside him during combat tours in Afghanistan.
“After the war, we promised we’d have their back,” he said via email. “Our word must be our bond, but Donald Trump is threatening to break it once again. When America breaks our promises, especially to our friends, it makes us less safe.”
Crow last summer reintroduced the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would create a pathway for lawful permanent status for tens of thousands of Afghans who are currently in the United States.
Dadfar fled Afghanistan in 2021, after U.S. troops had withdrawn and the Taliban returned to power. Fearing for his life, he traveled with his wife and four children first to Iran, and then to Brazil when the Brazilian government offered visas to Afghan refugees. After about a year in South America, the family made a treacherous journey through the jungle of the Darien Gap to reach the U.S. border.
They arrived at the border in the summer of 2024 and were allowed to enter the country based on their claims for asylum. They settled in Louisville, where Dadfar’s brother already lived.
Dadfar had received humanitarian parole, a temporary immigration status that allows people facing urgent humanitarian crises to enter the country legally. The status was granted to 30,000 people from Hungary in the 1950s after the Soviet Union crushed Hungary’s anti-Communist revolution. It has been given to people fleeing persecution in Cuba and Vietnam, and more recently, to Ukrainians after the Russian invasion and Afghans after Kabul fell back into the hands of the Taliban in 2021.
In June, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was terminating humanitarian parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. That followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision in May granting an emergency request from the Trump administration to terminate parole for more than 530,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who entered the country under the Biden administration.
Dadfar, who had been working as a truck driver for only a few weeks, was caught up in what ICE officials are calling “Operation Midway Blitz,” a Chicago-based effort to prevent “alien threats to public safety.”
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said 223 people were taken into custody in a “successful operation” with the Indiana State Police targeting truck drivers near the Illinois state line. Immigration officials said they were targeting immigrants who were given commercial driver’s licenses by “sanctuary states,” including Illinois.
Dadfar has not been accused of a crime. He had a permit that authorized him to work in the United States, his attorney said.
In immigration court in Denver, “he had already complied with all of his obligations,” Guevara said. “He was just waiting for a final hearing date.”
Guevara has asked the court to transfer Dadfar’s new immigration case from Missouri to Denver so he can be closer to his family and lawyer. He is awaiting a judge’s ruling.
An ICE spokesperson, contacted via email, said immigration officials had read The Sun’s initial story about Dadfar and “have nothing to add.” They provided no other comment.