Elite Afghan commando trained by US forces faces deportation for crossing southern border illegally

An elite commando who fought alongside American forces to stave off the Taliban has been arrested in Texas for illegally crossing the southern border.

Abdul Wasi Safi is said to be the only one of nearly 100 migrants who crossed the Rio Grande in September to have been detained by US Border Patrol.

He has since been tortured, his brother, Sami-Ullah Safi told FOX News on Monday and faces deportation back to Afghanistan — where he is sure to face execution by the Taliban.

Wasi, as his brother has called him, was left behind when the last plane pulled out of Afghanistan over the summer amid President Joe Biden’s tumultuous withdrawal of American troops.

The Taliban are now holding public executions, stonings and floggings and even amputating thieves’ limbs.

He was said to have tried to get on the last plane carrying American military officials and civilians out of the country on August 16, but could not get close due to the crowds surrounding the plane

Sami, who is now an American citizen himself, told how his brother has been on the run since the last plane evacuating US forces left the country.

He had previously explained to Click 2 Houston how Wasi could not even get close to the plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport getting American citizens out of the country in August — as it was surrounded by thousands desperately trying to flee the country.

But Wasi had gone to the airport every day for several days prior trying to get in, showing his military pass to the American guards.

In fact, Sami said, Wasi was just 50 meters away when a suicide bomber with ISIS-K detonated at one of the gates on August 26, killing 13 U.S. service members and 60 Afghans.

American forces, though, kept turning the elite commando away, saying he did not have the right forms.

Then, when the Taliban officially took control of the country and there were no more American forces to fight them back, Sami says, his brother went into hiding. 

Eventually, Wasi decided to try to get a visa to enter the United States legally, but the US embassy in Kabul had shut down.

He would instead have to apply in person at the embassy in Qatar — but he did not have the necessary visas to cross Iran or Pakistan to reach the country.

At a loss of options, Sami told Click 2 Houston, Wasi decided to text some of his friends who were also former Afghan special operations troops.

Soon, though, each member of the group was captured, interrogated and killed.

Wasi is said to have then called Sami, who is now living in Houston, and told his brother he was becoming ‘mentally weak.’

‘Everyone in the family and [our] relatives knows that I was in the special forces,’ he said in one voice message, obtained by the local news station.

‘I don’t know what to do, brother.’

Wasi, left, served as a commando trained by American special forces to stave off the Taliban

He was said to be just 50 meters away when a suicide-bomber attacked a gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, desperately hoping to flee Taliban rule 

Sami, who had received US citizenship in July 2021 after six years of living in Texas, said he knew his brother needed help to reach the US, and paid more than $1,000 to get Wasi a visa to enter Pakistan.

The brothers had heard that Brazil was offering humanitarian aid visas to those stuck in Afghanistan, so Wasi sent his documentation in advance and crossed the Pakistani border by car — being careful to avoid capture by the Taliban, who guarded the country’s main roads.

For several weeks, Click 2 Houston reports, Wasi stayed in a hotel in Islamabad, leaving only to go to his embassy appointment and pick up the visa.

Once that was done, though, he still had to figure out how to get to Brazil.

He had heard rumors that the Taliban was patrolling the airports in Pakistan, looking for anyone trying to flee Afghanistan.

He also heard that some Pakistani officials were refusing to allow even ticketed travelers to board their planes unless they paid a bribe, with rumors swirling that it happened to one of his fellow soldiers.

But Wasi had a friend who worked at the Kabul airport and said he would help the soldier get out of the country.

So with a Brazilian visa in hand, Wasi trekked back to Kabul, using a fabricated prescription to trick guards at Taliban checkpoints, saying he had to cross into Pakistan to get medication.

He then prayed at each checkpoint that his past as a special operations commando would be discovered, but every guard fortunately his story.

When he reached the Kabul airport, though, a Taliban guard stopped Wasi, searched his documents and asked why he was traveling to Brazil. 

The guard then handed him a biometric device and asked to scan Washi’s fingerprints — but Wasi said he started arguing loudly with the guard, claiming he was a student traveling to the country and demanding to know why he was being harassed.

The guard ultimately let him pass. 

Wasi, second from left, had crossed into Pakistan to get a humanitarian visa 

He figured he would receive a hero’s welcome amid crossing into the US

But once in Brazil, Wasi still had to figure out how to get to the United States.

He joined a local caravan making its way north in late August, and together the several hundred migrants crossed through Columbia and into the Darién Gap, a 60-mile stretch of jungle where migrants are often preyed upon by gangs, cartels and paramilitary forces in the area.

Many also die along the way from snake bites, exposure to the elements or drowning. 

Wasi said 16 of the group of more than 300 did not make it out of the jungle alive.

He told how Panamanian police came to the migrant’s camp during the journey, stripped him naked in front of everyone, threw insect-repellent powder from his pack onto his open wounds and repeatedly called him a terrorist.

‘They treated me very bad,’ Wasi said. ‘They took my food and said it was a bomb, calling me Taliban. I said I was not Taliban, and still they treated me like this.’

 But Wasi kept his faith that he would be treated better when he reached the United States because he had sacrificed for the country, and with his faith in tact he was able to cross through Central America and into Mexico.

There, he paid a smuggler to drive him and nearly 30 other migrants in a truck from Mexico City to the US border, but the smuggler shook them down for clothes, valuables and money, leaving them high and dry.

The group then had to walk northbound themselves, eventually crossing the Rio Grande on September 30.

But after Wasi crossed, he said he went back to help young children and women who were struggling in the deeper parts of the water.

Eventually, he was spotted by US Border Patrol agents.

He said he approached them and asked for asylum, but was instead arrested.

Two days later, Click 2 Houston reports, Wasi was sent to the Val Verde Correctional Facility and charged with a federal misdemeanor for failing to present himself at a port of entry with paperwork proving he was allowed to be in the United States.

He was denied bond in October, much to the shock of his brother who had offered to shelter Wasi while his case was pending. And just last month, he was transferred to an immigration detention center in Eden, just over 40 miles east of San Angelo. 

Sami says his brother has been treated terribly by American law enforcement ever since.

‘He received the worst treatment that he never expected from a country that he fought alongside,’ Sami told FOX News, adding that his brother had thought he would receive a hero’s welcome upon his arrival.

Sami said he reached out to the president about his brother’s case, telling Biden: ‘My brother fought alongside the same troops that you deployed to Afghanistan, and now he’s facing deportation.

‘He deserves recognition for his service.’

But Sami said he has not yet heard any updates about his brother’s case, as Wasi is due back in court on January 10.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, expressed his frustration with Wasi’s treatment in a subsequent interview on Monday, calling it a ‘confluence of ineptitude.

‘I mean to think about a heroic Afghani soldier who risked his life and his family’s life to stand with our soldiers being relegated to having to go to South America to join the massive movement north to the border, and then he’s the one that we put in jail when  he crosses the border.

‘It really is extraordinary,’ Pence said.

He added that he hopes the Biden administration is ‘watching and moving quickly to remedy that situation,’ saying: ‘We owe a debt of honor and gratitude to every one of the Afghan soldiers that stood with the brave men and women that fought in Afghanistan on our behalf over those 20 years.’