Report: Government lost track of Afghan illegal immigrant who was on terror watchlist

SAN YSIDRO, CA – A 48-year-old Afghan national who illegally crossed into the U.S. back in the spring of 2023 had apparently been unmonitored for nearly a year following his initial apprehension, despite the illegal alien being on a terrorist watchlist.

On March 10, 2023, Border Patrol agents working along the U.S./Mexico border near San Ysidro, California, apprehended an Afghan national identified as Mohammad Kharwin. Two days following the alien’s apprehension, Kharwin referred over to the Alternatives to Detention program (ATD), which consists of a series of varying post-release monitoring methods aimed at ensuring one complies with their immigration hearings and the ilk.  

However, the ATD program is only meant to be used in cases for low-risk/low-threat illegal aliens following their apprehension, and seemingly Kharwin’s ties to a terrorist organization abroad eluded immigration authorities upon his initial arrest.

Despite Kharwin initially being placed into the ATD program, he was removed by March 28, 2023, but the circumstances of his removal from the program at that time aren’t clear. Nonetheless, Kharwin was seemingly able to go on about his business unmonitored for nearly eleven months until immigration authorities arrested him again in February of 2024 after receiving word from the FBI that Kharwin was in league with Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin in Afghanistan.

But the matter involving Kharwin’s detention was somehow blundered again by ICE prosecutors during his immigration hearing following the February apprehension, as the aforesaid prosecutors reportedly failed to share with the immigration judge handling the case that Kharwin had terrorist ties. The judge in turn ordered Kharwin’s release on a $12,000 bond, leaving the national security threat to roam about the United States for roughly two more months.

It wasn’t until media reports earlier in April were being ran regarding Kharwin’s non-detained status that immigration authorities took him back into custody on April 11 in San Antonio, Texas. An ICE spokesperson said in a statement on the matter, “As soon as there was information to suggest that this individual was of concern, he was taken into custody by ICE.”

This particular case has drawn criticism over how illegal aliens who’ve been processed by immigration authorities are being monitored, with news outlets like NBC News saying that Republicans “who oppose the [ATD] have cut funding to it,” inferring that Congressional Republicans are outwardly against sensical border policies.

However, Republicans’ disdain for the entirety of ATD measures appears to more accurately stem from Republicans’ desire to see all illegal immigrants held in detention pending the outcome of their cases.

In fact, House Republicans grilled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on April 16 during a Homeland Security Committee meeting due to Mayorkas requesting more money for resources aside from more beds in detention facilities despite not even using all the beds available to him to keep illegal aliens detained.

House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green addressed Mayorkas during the aforementioned meeting with, “There are thousands of beds available per day, roughly 9,000 on average in FY 2022, 3,000 a day in FY 2023. Yet the arguments before the Supreme Court and in your testimony before here to Congress had been that the resources are overwhelmed and therefore we have to just catch and release these people into the country.”