photo #9316415

An Afghan soldier who fought beside U.S. Special Forces for a decade died in ICE custody one day after agents arrested him at home. His wife tried to hand them his asthma inhaler. They refused it.Newly obtained records raised even more questions about what happened inside federal custody.Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal was 41. He spent more than a decade fighting in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan alongside American forces. When U.S. troops pulled out in 2021, he was evacuated with thousands of other allies, came here through a legal process, and requested asylum. That claim was still pending.On March 13, ICE arrested him at his home in Richardson, Texas — while he was getting some of his six children ready for school. His wife rushed to give agents the inhaler he relied on for his asthma. They rejected it.He was dead at a Dallas hospital by March 14.His death certificate lists the cause as “anaphylaxis complicating acute asthma exacerbation” — a severe allergic reaction to an unidentified substance that got into his system while he was in federal custody. The document names methamphetamine as a contributing factor. His family and coworkers say they never knew him to use meth. A private autopsy the family paid for couldn’t even test for it, because no blood was left.No one will say what the substance was. No one will say how it got into a man who was locked in a government facility.The date of injury on the certificate is listed as the day before ICE ever took him into custody.Among the dozens of people who have died in ICE detention during President Trump’s second term, AP reported his was the only death so far ruled an accident. Dallas County has refused to release the autopsy, saying ICE told them it would interfere with a federal investigation. A senator called it a cover-up.ICE has defended targeting him for deportation by pointing to food stamp fraud and theft charges. He was never convicted of either.His brother Naseer, who remembers him as a special forces soldier, has one question left: “What accident are they talking about? We just want the truth.”Six kids no longer have a father who once risked his life for this country.