RICHARDSON, Texas — An Afghan asylum seeker described by relatives and veteran advocates as a former U.S. partner in Afghanistan died Saturday at a Dallas hospital less than 24 hours after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him outside his North Texas home, prompting demands for an independent investigation, March 15, 2026. The case is drawing unusual scrutiny because the man, identified by ICE and local news outlets as Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, had been living with his wife and six children while a pending immigration case remained unresolved, and because public records reviewed so far do not explain exactly why he died so quickly.
In a Sunday news release from ICE, the agency said Paktiawal, 41, was arrested March 13 in what it described as a targeted enforcement action. ICE said he later complained of shortness of breath and chest pain while being held at the Dallas Field Office, was taken to Parkland Hospital for treatment and observation, and was declared dead at 9:10 a.m. March 14 after medical staff reported that his tongue had swollen during breakfast. The agency said his death is under active investigation.
According to reporting by The Texas Tribune, eight masked agents detained Paktiawal at about 7 a.m. Friday while he was taking his children to school. The outlet reported that his family lived in Richardson while his asylum claim remained pending and that a preliminary Dallas County Medical Examiner report did not yet list a cause or manner of death. In a statement shared through advocates, the family said it was trying to comfort six children who had lost their father.
Local coverage by CBS Texas added another layer of tension. The station reported that Paktiawal’s brother said the arrest happened in front of the children and that “all I want” now is “justice for my brother.” CBS also reported that CAIR-Texas called for a full and transparent investigation, while ICE told the station that when Paktiawal entered the United States in 2021 he provided no record of his military service.
Why the Afghan asylum seeker case is drawing urgent scrutiny
Reuters reported that AfghanEvac, a veteran-led coalition that has helped coordinate support for Afghan evacuees, called for an immediate investigation after Paktiawal died less than a day after he was detained. “It is highly unusual for an otherwise healthy 41-year-old man to die less than a day after being taken into government custody,” AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said.
In a fact sheet posted by AfghanEvac, the group said relatives were told Paktiawal was admitted to Parkland late March 13, was still alive the next morning and was dead by midday. The group said the cause of death remained unknown and that the family was still seeking answers.
That uncertainty matters because almost every other detail around the case is disputed or incomplete. ICE said Paktiawal’s parole expired in August 2025 and said he had 2025 arrests tied to allegations involving SNAP fraud and theft, but the agency did not publicly say those allegations resulted in convictions. Relatives and advocates, by contrast, have described him as a former Afghan special forces soldier who worked alongside U.S. Army Special Forces for years, then evacuated to the United States after the fall of Kabul and found work in the Dallas area while supporting his family. Those competing descriptions will shape whatever inquiry comes next.
The death is also landing inside a detention system already under pressure. Current reporting indicates Paktiawal’s case is at least the 12th death in ICE custody nationwide in 2026 and at least the seventh reported in Texas since December. Last year, 31 people died in ICE custody nationwide, a two-decade high. That broader pattern is one reason the demands for outside scrutiny have spread so quickly beyond North Texas.
Older warnings show how the Afghan asylum seeker story fits a longer pattern
The vulnerability of Afghans in Texas did not begin this weekend. A 2023 Texas Tribune report on Afghans in Texas found that people who fled after the collapse of the Afghan government were already struggling to move through a frayed mix of refugee, visa and asylum pathways, even as Texas remained one of the country’s main resettlement destinations.
By January 2025, a Reuters report on canceled refugee flights said the Trump administration was pulling nearly 1,660 already-cleared Afghans from resettlement flights, including former Afghan soldiers, unaccompanied minors and family members of active-duty U.S. service personnel. That left thousands more in limbo.
And by December, The Texas Tribune reported that new federal orders were temporarily halting asylum decisions and adding extra review for some green-card cases, deepening uncertainty for migrants who believed they were already moving through legal channels. In that sense, Paktiawal’s death is not an isolated shock so much as the sharpest point yet in a longer story of narrowing options, delayed status decisions and mounting detention risk.
What happens next will matter well beyond one family. The immediate questions are basic: what caused Paktiawal’s death, what medical care he received from the moment he complained of distress, and whether an independent inquiry will review the case rather than relying only on internal agency findings. Until those answers are public, the death of an Afghan asylum seeker who relatives and advocates say once served alongside U.S. forces is likely to remain a test of how much transparency ICE is willing to provide when detention ends in death.
