Former Afghan soldier released from detention, welcomed in Texas

Abdul Wasi Safi on Friday was welcomed in Houston by his friends, family, attorneys, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. He had been released Wednesday from an immigration detention center in Eden, Texas. Wasi Safi was arrested while trying to cross the Mexico border in search of asylum in the U.S. He spent months in the detention center before federal prosecutors had his immigration charge dropped.

How was Wasi Safi detained? Wasi Safi fled Afghanistan when the U.S. withdrew its troops from the country in 2021. As an intelligence officer for the Afghan National Security Forces, he feared the Taliban would target him for having offered terrorist information to the U.S. In the summer of 2022, he set out from Brazil for the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to join his brother in Houston.

Dig Deeper: Listen to Whitney Williams’ report on The World and Everything in It podcast about how one man helped people flee Afghanistan.