Abdul Wasi Safi, an Afghan soldier fleeing the Taliban, spent months crossing two continents, by plane, car, and taxi, and walking miles through Panema to reach the US-Mexico border, where he was arrested and put behind bars for trying to find refuge. 

Wasi was charged with a federal crime for illegal entering the country.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, a target was painted on every Afghan that had ever worked with the United States. Members of the Afghan Forces scrambled to reach flights leaving Kabul International Airport to flee the evident persecution they’d face in the hands of the Taliban, including soldiers like Abdul Wasi Safi.  

Wasi called his brother, Sam, who resides in Houston, constantly. Wasi was terrified, he and his family lived in hiding in Kabul. The US embassy in Kabul shutdown amidst the Taliban takeover, and Wasi couldn’t cross checkpoints to get to neighboring Pakistan and Iran because he didn’t have the necessary visas. Sami, Wasi’s brother, paid more than $1000 to obtain a visa allowing Wasi to enter Pakistan. 

Wasi’s friends in the Afghan Special Forces were quickly being kidnapped, interrogated, and killed by the Taliban. 

Brazil was offering humanitarian aid visas, so Wasi sent his application in advance. Then took a car to cross the border to Pakistan, narrowly avoiding the Taliban who guard the country’s main roads. Wasi obtained his Brazilian visa, and made his way to São Paulo, Brazil by plane.

São Paulo was no safe haven though, Wasi said he was constantly beaten and extorted by locals, charging more than $6 for a bottle of water. After three weeks, Wasi joined a group of migrants making the journey from South America to the US by bus, and foot. 

They crossed through Colombia and into the infamous Darién Gap, a 60-mile stretch of roadless jungle where vulnerable migrants are often preyed upon by gangs, cartels and paramilitary forces in the area. Many 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 said 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.

After crossing through Central America and into Mexico, Wasi said he paid a smuggler who drove him and roughly 30 other migrants in a truck from Mexico City to the U.S. border. They left near midnight. Wasi sat covered in a plastic sheet the smuggler put over them for the long night ride.

When the truck stopped, Wasi said the smuggler opened the back, then shook them down for clothes, valuables and money. The truck left. After a stranger approached and pointed them toward the border, Wasi and the other migrants began walking in the dark.

They crossed the shallow Rio Grande slowly on Sept. 30, trying to keep their remaining belongings out of the water. After Wasi crossed, he said he went back to help young children and women who were struggling in the deeper parts of the river.

When Wasi spotted U.S. Border Patrol agents, he said he approached them and asked for asylum. According to a Department of Homeland Security report, an agent apprehended Wasi at Rosetta Farm Orchard near Eagle Pass after spotting footprints leading away from the river.

Two days later, after an interrogation by federal agents, 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 U.S.

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

“I think my brother is the first in my whole tribe to be in chains, ever,” Sami said after attending his brother’s detention hearing. “It was very difficult to see him like that. He’s not a criminal. Why are they treating him like he has done something wrong?”

Denise Gilman, the director of the immigration clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, said it’s likely that after his criminal charges are sorted out, Wasi will be able to receive an asylum hearing. But it’s possible that he could also be deported back to Afghanistan or kept in immigration detention indefinitely.

If he doesn’t plead guilty, his trial date is set for Dec. 20 in Del Rio.