The Taliban’s former ambassador to Spain was once detained by way of U.S. immigration officers whilst coming into the USA on Saturday, and remained in custody after a federal pass judgement on declined to reserve his liberate on Monday.
The previous Afghan diplomat, Mohammad Rahim Wahidi, was once detained at Washington Dulles World Airport underneath what his attorney described as a weaponization of a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Below the regulation, the secretary of state can deport a noncitizen made up our minds to be a countrywide safety possibility.
Mr. Wahidi is a lawful everlasting resident and his spouse, Mary Shakeri-Wahidi, is a U.S. citizen, in step with a courtroom submitting from his attorney, Hassan Ahmad.
The Trump management has not too long ago cited similar legal justifications for canceling the visas of masses of scholars whose participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations has gave the impression to grow to be grounds for detention and deportation. In focused on pupil activists comparable to Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk and Momodou Taal for deportation, the management has attempted to hyperlink their protests towards Israel to “hostile overseas coverage penalties” that may justify their elimination.
Mr. Wahidi’s case seems to be other.
In step with the submitting inquiring for his liberate, Mr. Wahidi’s brother-in-law is sought after by way of the USA in reference to a plot to assassinate an Iranian journalist that the Justice Division detailed in a news release in November.
Mr. Wahidi was once stripped of his name in Spain over accusations of sexual attack all the way through his time there, however legal fees have been by no means filed towards him and he was once allowed to go away the rustic, in step with the submitting.
Upon returning to the USA on a Turkish Airways flight on Saturday, Mr. Wahidi was once detained for greater than 30 hours with out get right of entry to to a attorney, in step with the submitting. He was once then interrogated by way of “an unclear collection of officials” who gave the look to be from the F.B.I., Mr. Ahmad wrote within the petition.
Mr. Ahmad has additionally represented Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral pupil at Georgetown College who was once centered for deportation over his involvement in campus protests there.
After Mr. Wahidi’s petition was once filed, Pass judgement on Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Courtroom for the Jap District of Virginia blocked the federal government from shifting Mr. Wahidi out of the world. In instances involving the coed activists, other people have robotically been moved to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in Louisiana, masses of miles from the place they have been to start with arrested.
Neither Mr. Ahmad nor a spokesperson for Customs and Border Coverage replied to requests for remark.
Pass judgement on Brinkema declined to immediately order Mr. Wahidi’s release, announcing that “at this level the courtroom can’t be offering any aid.”
Whilst the case proceeds, she ordered the federal government to “conform to C.B.P. temporary detention requirements” and to not prohibit Mr. Wahidi from talking to a attorney.
