An Afghan man spent years helping the U.S. military fight the Taliban, then made a new life legally in St. Louis County. Now, he's in custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and facing deportation proceedings on allegations he aided a terrorist organization.
St. Louis Public Radio is not using the man's name because he said he fears the Taliban would kill him and family still in Afghanistan for working against the group, notably for assisting the U.S. military during Operation Enduring Freedom — a global counterterrorism operation launched after the Sept. 11 attacks that took place 25 years ago this week. The man, now in his 30s, was a child when the towers fell.
The Afghan man, who holds a green card, has been in the United States legally since 2014. He entered through the State Department's now-sunsetting Special Immigrant Visa program — an effort to bring Afghans employed under U.S. contracts to the United States.
Since then he's built a life in the St. Louis area, marrying and having children — the youngest born just weeks ago — and earning several degrees. He works as a scientist and was hoping to one day become a medical doctor. The U.S. government appears to have been building a case against him since at least 2021, according to a federal search warrant issued for a hard drive. The warrant includes allegations linking him to a group associated with al-Qaida.
He maintains his innocence, telling St. Louis Public Radio from the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center that his rights as a permanent resident are being violated.
"The burden of proof is on them. They should prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and give me a fair chance — the constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial," he said when reached by phone on Monday. "They have unconstitutionally imprisoned me and took that right away from me."
ICE arrests across the country have surged over the summer, setting a record high of nearly 50,000 arrests in July, according to data provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA. The wave of arrests follows Congress approving billions in immigration enforcement funding in June. In Missouri alone, federal data shows, deportations have nearly tripled.
ICE contends the man provided "material support to a terrorist organization" and "willfully misrepresented a fact" on his May 2019 naturalization application, according to a Sept. 2 statement to STLPR. The immigration agency, as well as the FBI, did not respond to STLPR's follow-up questions about the specific accusations.
"Due to allegations of terrorist activity and seeking admission by fraud, [the Afghan man] has been placed in removal proceedings and will remain in ICE custody. He will receive due process," the ICE statement continued. "Possessing a green card is a privilege, not a right. Under our nation's laws, our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused."
Cata Estrada, the Afghan man's 36-year-old wife — who gave permission for her name to be used — said the government gave her husband more than 100 pages of allegations on Sept. 1 related to a 2018 trip to Afghanistan. The man contends in a 2023 federal lawsuit that he traveled there to visit family. The man and Estrada deny ICE's claims and said that, for years, the federal government has treated him as a terrorist without clearly explaining why or charging him in criminal court.
The Afghan man is one of more than a dozen plaintiffs in the 2023 federal lawsuit arguing the U.S. government violated their constitutional rights by putting them on terrorist watchlists for unfounded reasons. He asserts that stalled his naturalization application pending since 2019, subjected him to unfounded scrutiny when traveling, impacted his ability to send money to his family back in Afghanistan and barred him from enlisting in the Army as an interpreter.
STLPR has not obtained or reviewed the full trove of documents. Estrada told STLPR that officials at the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center, where her husband is being held, told her they "don't do handoffs" when she tried to obtain the documents in person.
The former U.S. military translator's immigration court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 14 in Kansas City Immigration Court.
Working with U.S. forces
The man's family provided STLPR with a collection of U.S. military and government records documenting his work as a linguist, interpreter and cultural adviser to American and Afghan forces fighting the Taliban.
The documents, spanning 2012 to 2023, cover a time when the U.S. military trusted him with sensitive work, allowed him to fight in combat alongside American troops and helped him seek refuge in the country whose government is now attempting to deport him. The records include recommendations from Army and Marine Corps officers, military intelligence advisers and direct supervisors who vouched for his loyalty and trust, while urging the federal government to grant him a Special Immigrant Visa.
Two officials said at the time that they did not consider him a threat to U.S. national security, one of them retired Army Col. Robert Benjamin.
Benjamin told STLPR by phone last week that he at one time oversaw roughly 9,000 interpreters across Southwest Asia and Africa. He authenticated a recommendation letter he wrote and said the man worked with him daily as his personal cultural adviser, as well as a linguist and interpreter, both on base and in the battlefield. The retired officer said that the stakes were high and that if the Taliban had found the man working with U.S. troops, "they would absolutely have killed him and probably tortured him before it happened."
Benjamin initially told STLPR that he stood behind his recommendation. The next day, he recanted his support.
He told STLPR that he received a phone call from a government agency informing him that ICE had detained the Afghan man he vouched for more than a decade ago, detailing some of the accusations.
Benjamin wouldn't discuss the government's allegations but appeared shocked to learn of them and emphasized he could no longer back his former employee.
Allegations
A 2021 FBI search warrant for an encrypted hard drive tied to the man illuminates some of the government's allegations against him. The warrant was under seal and only made public in March 2025.
The government says the man had numerous ties to a global terrorist organization, regularly used Facebook to communicate with its members and stored large amounts of encrypted information on the hard drive, in a way that could have been done "to conceal it from law enforcement."
Federal investigators wrote they believe the hard drive contained evidence that he supported terrorist organizations and their members, saying that violated part of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a federal law that carries penalties of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
The FBI's warrant confirms the man served as a U.S. military interpreter in Gardez, Afghanistan, from approximately October 2010 to April 2014. But after his service, the government claims, the man communicated with members of Jama'at ul Dawa al-Qu'ran (JDQ). The State Department designated the Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan-based group as a foreign terrorist organization in 2016.
In the warrant, the government asserts that some consider the group to be part of the Taliban because in 2010, JDQ swore allegiance to then-Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The group also has long-standing ties to al-Qaida and Lashkar e-Tayyiba, a separate Pakistan-based militant and extremist group founded in 1989. JDQ was behind the 2010 kidnapping and death of British aid worker Linda Norgrove.
The Afghan man regularly communicated with JDQ senior leaders online and in person, the FBI asserts, contending that his social media messages show he knew that JDQ was designated as a global terrorist organization by the U.S. government. During one conversation with a JDQ member, the man allegedly acknowledged JDQ has been blacklisted and stated the reasoning was because there are "some dogs in congress here [in the USA] who are anti-Islam."
Just weeks after arriving in the United States, the man is alleged to have reached out to the son of JDQ's late founder Sheikh Jamil al-Rahman. The Afghan man is reported to have asked about how to obtain speeches by the man and said "he needed to discuss something with him."
In March 2015, the man is alleged to have maintained a Facebook tribute page for the late JDQ founder Sheikh Jameel ur Rahman, an online space where he would post meeting information for the militant group — many of the meetings in Afghanistan. In May 2018, the man claims he went to Afghanistan to visit family. The FBI search warrant says photos from the trip show the man attended an event where JDQ's leader spoke.
After returning to the U.S. three months later, the man filed a naturalization application and was asked if he had been a member of, or associated with, a terrorist organization. "[The man] answered "no" to the question," according to the FBI search warrant. "[The man] also denied ever being a member of, helping, serving, or otherwise ever participating in an insurgent organization."
The FBI alleges the man falsely denied ever claiming to be an American citizen, pointing to a Missouri voter registration application in which he allegedly identified himself as a such.
In 2019, the government executed three search warrants on the man's Facebook pages: his personal page, the tribute page and a page where people would debate Islamic ideologies, according to the warrant's probable cause statement.
In December 2020, the man returned to Afghanistan once more. Customs and Border Patrol agents found that he was traveling with a timer, cables, a power converter, a range finder, a pair of binoculars, and six cellphones. Still, he was allowed to travel. The government is unsure if he had that material when he returned because there was nothing reported out of the ordinary.
When asked about the warrant, the Afghan man told STLPR he wasn't familiar with the allegations. When going through each of the government's assertions, the man refused to speak about any involvement or communications with members of JDQ but said he is not a member or will ever be a member of a terror organization. He added that he never voted or intended to vote while not a U.S. citizen and underscored it is not illegal to travel with binoculars.
If the government found incriminating evidence, the man said, he should be afforded a trial before a judge and his peers.
"[The government] can prove it without a reasonable doubt in front of a jury and then go from there," he said. "That's the right way to do it."
The arrest
ICE arrested the Afghan man on Aug. 25, according to a statement from the agency, as he began an early morning run. But Estrada disputes the date of the arrest, alleging he was arrested on Aug. 26.
"He never came back," she told STLPR last week, fearing at first that he had been injured. Then her phone rang. "My gut said answer it, and it was him stating that he had been arrested by ICE."
He told STLPR on a call from the Ste. Genevieve Detention Center last week that he initially thought he was being robbed when a black vehicle with tinted windows rushed him. He said his entire life flashed in front of him as federal agents poured out of the vehicle, pointed guns at him and screamed they had a warrant for his arrest before taking him into custody.
"They put me on the ground and chained me up right there, and they were asking any questions and I remained silent," he said on Thursday. He said agents drove him to a police station parking lot where they took photos with him "as if they had arrested Osama bin Laden's accomplice."
"I kind of smiled at that point because there was a time when the U.S. forces relied upon what we said. We helped them," he said. "How time changes."
ICE detained and placed him in deportation proceedings with the help of the FBI, spokespeople from both agencies confirmed. The Afghan man told STLPR he believes his arrest may be tied to his attendance at a 2016 anti-Trump protest in downtown St. Louis. He said he attended after hearing the president repeatedly speak ill of people of color — including Muslims and Mexicans.
"I believed, and I still believe [...] America stands against tyranny, against hate, and against religious bigotry," he said. "I always believe in the American spirit and the freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I think that's the beautiful thing about the United States of America, and that's what makes the United States better and different."
He said he didn't know of any other reason he may be targeted, other than alluding to the Trump administration's track record of policies around Muslim individuals.
"Today, it's a permanent resident's constitutionally guaranteed right taken away. Tomorrow, it's yours," he said. "If you're a United States citizen, it's coming to your doorstep. It's scary and it's not OK and shouldn't be happening this way to anybody."
St. Louis Public Radio's Hiba Ahmad contributed to this report.
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