Afghan soldier says he will live the ‘American dream’ after being released from immigration detention center

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HOUSTON. Abdul Wasi Safi stirred with anxiety the first night he tried to spend the night at his brother’s house.

Less than 24 hours after he was released from an immigration detention center, an Afghan soldier who crossed the world to escape the Taliban worried every time he heard the sirens that the US authorities were going to re-arrest him. .

His fear will subside as the reality that the four months he spent in detention after seeking asylum on the Texas border is behind him. He penetrated. He did indeed reunite with his brother Sami-ullah Safi, a naturalized American citizen.

“Really, they let me out!” Vasi said on Friday.

The brothers’ reunion was unveiled Friday at a press conference hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston, who pressured the Joe Biden administration and other federal agencies to intervene on Vasya’s behalf.

“America made a promise, and America kept its promise,” Jackson Lee said.

Both Safi brothers expressed their gratitude to Jackson Lee, who got fully involved in working with government officials to expedite the process of Vasya’s dismissal.

Vasya’s trip to the United States began on the day the American troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan. As a special forces officer assisting the US military, Wasi was an easy target for the Taliban, who launched a campaign of revenge. For several months, Vasya hid with his family. He eventually left for the US to reunite with his brother in Houston.

He crossed three continents, including a seven-day trek through the treacherous Darien Pass in Panama with a group of other migrants, to reach the US-Mexico border in September. After being abandoned by a smuggler near Del Rio, Vasi said he tried to introduce himself to a border agent and ask for asylum. Instead, he was arrested.

Vasya’s months-long detention at the border attracted national attention after the Texas Tribune first published his story. Various veterans and refugee advocates pushed for federal officials to release Vasya. National news outlets, including Fox News, reported on Vasya’s case.

Additional members of Congress have joined in writing their own letters to the White House, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R. Houston, and Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican. Both are combat veterans.

After several starts, stops and shifts in the legal teams, Vasya was expected to appear in his first criminal court in February. Had he been found guilty, he would have had to serve up to one year in prison before starting to apply for asylum. Vasya and his brother insisted that Vasya would not start his life in the US with a criminal record.

And earlier this week, the federal government closed the case against Vasya, paving the way for his release.

“The mistake has been corrected,” Sami said. “We believed that America would not abandon its allies.” Both brothers helped American troops in the country’s longest war, but Sami was a contract translator and Vasi was an Afghan special forces officer.

Jackson Lee’s office put pressure on several federal government agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, over Vasya’s situation.

“I thought it would be easy to resolve,” Jackson Lee said. Instead, her office went to agency after agency to help figure out how to secure Vasya’s release.

“This is not about writing letters,” she said. “It’s about elbow grease, which has made our government look promising.”

Jackson Lee said she would work to make the asylum application process easier for soldiers like Wasi so that something like this doesn’t happen again.

At one point on Friday, Vasi called Jackson Lee his new American mom.

Vasya’s journey to the hideout can begin in earnest right now. It’s a legal process that could take years, but in the meantime he wants to get a green card so he can work and take English classes.

“I look forward to the next steps in this process,” said Vasi. “I will live the American dream.”

“When I was in Val Verde and I was sent to the Eden Detention Center, all people [were] tedious [the] the same form,” said Vasya. “All the time I was thinking about what’s outside… but when I came out here, we went to the mall, I feel beautiful as usual.”

Vasey said he began to feel hopeful about coming to the United States again when the congresswoman told him to keep fighting and plead not guilty.

“This is the best thing in America and it takes the right spirit to make it happen,” Jackson Lee said.

The Vasya case required the involvement of some of the highest levels of the US government to see change. Other Afghans have been detained at the border, including one Vasi knew from his cadet days, but the congresswoman said the way forward is largely administrative.

Vasya smiled as he spoke at the conference, something he said he rarely did on the march to finally meet his brother. When he and Sami saw each other behind the prison barriers, Vasi said that it was amazing to finally hug him.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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