The younger children of Mohammad Ali Dadfar believe their father is away, working. That’s what they’ve been told.
Only the oldest, an 11-year-old girl, and Dadfar’s wife know the truth.
The father of four, an immigrant from Afghanistan who helped the U.S. military fight the Taliban, is in a Springfield, Missouri, jail — held with other immigrants picked up in nationwide sweeps.
Dadfar is 37 and an asylum-seeker with work authorization and a job as an over-the-road trucker.
He’s been held in the Greene County Jail since early October and fears being sent back to Afghanistan.
“They feel the lack of their father now,” said Dadfar’s wife, speaking with the help of a translation app. “And every time their question is, ‘When will father come home?’“
The Beacon is not naming her due to privacy concerns for the minor children.
A Kansas City-based immigration attorney has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Dadfar’s warrantless arrest and detention as unlawful.
Dadfar’s case is among a spate of federal lawsuits contesting warrantless arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is part of continued legal attempts to hold the Trump administration accountable to a 2022 consent decree.
The Department of Homeland Security can arrest people without a warrant, but only in limited circumstances, such as when there is a fear that the person will escape before a warrant can be obtained.
Dadfar, the lawsuit argues, was not a flight risk.
Dadfar is represented by Rekha Sharma-Crawford in the case, which alleges that his detention is a violation of the 2022 Castañon Nava federal consent decree.
Dadfar’s case was filed Oct. 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Named as defendants in the complaint are Greene County Sheriff Jim C. Arnott, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and ICE’s Chicago Field Office Director Samuel Olson.
The Greene County sheriff’s office was not aware of the filing and declined to comment further.
The Department of Homeland Security did not reply to a request for comment.
The Trump administration says it wants to remove dangerous immigrant criminals from the country, what officials often call “the worst of the worst.”
But 97% of the more than 600 undocumented immigrants arrested during the recent Operation Midway Blitz around Chicago had no criminal record, according to reporting by NPR, citing the Department of Homeland Security’s records submitted in ongoing cases involving the consent decree.
The lawsuit also asks that Dadfar not be transferred out of the jurisdiction of ICE’s Kansas City field office.
“Despite over 100 courts having determined that the government’s interpretation of law is incorrect, and the government not appealing those cases, people continue to be unlawfully denied due process and denied their freedom,” Sharma-Crawford said. “It’s un-American.”
Fighting the Taliban
Dadfar is among thousands of Afghans who assisted the U.S. military during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the longest war in U.S. history.
The U.S. entered Afghanistan in retaliation after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Afghans helped as part of the Afghan military, as translators, drivers and intelligence operatives and helped with logistics and understanding the country’s culture.
Dadfar, his wife said, was a security officer with the Afghan military and moved around the country with U.S. troops.
Ultimately, the U.S. and allied efforts failed and the Taliban retook the capital of Kabul in 2021.
Dadfar was left behind in the highly criticized, chaotic final withdrawal of U.S. troops under the Biden administration.
Because he had helped the U.S. military, Dadfar was targeted by the Taliban, his wife said.
Subsequent years were treacherous for Dadfar, his wife and their children, who are all under the age of 12.
Their journey to the U.S. took three years, with stays in Iran and Brazil.
A toddler daughter nearly drowned as the family crossed the roadless jungle of the Darien Gap, a dangerous passage between Colombia and Panama.
In June 2024, Dadfar and his family made it to the U.S. southern border. They had an appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, made through an app set up by the Department of Homeland Security.
At the border, they began the process to apply for asylum.
Dadfar was released on a parole that is valid until June 17, 2026.
Dadfar’s work permit is also valid through June 17, 2026, according to the lawsuit.
Operations Guardian and Midway Blitz
Dadfar’s Oct. 10 arrest at an Indiana weigh station came just three days after ICE had been found in violation of the original consent decree.
He was stopped there as part of his route as a commercial driver.
On Oct. 7, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled in favor of a group of immigrant workers, including 11 employees who had been apprehended during a raid at a Mexican restaurant in Liberty earlier this year.
The Liberty workers were already out on bond. But their cases were part of a class action challenge to how ICE is operating under the Trump administration.
The judge also agreed that immigration officials were concocting details for warrants after they had made arrests, rather than having the necessary warrants ahead of actions.
The 2022 consent decree is named for one of the original plaintiffs, Margarito Castañon-Nava, and covers six states — Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Kentucky.
Additional rulings by the same judge have ordered the government to release more than 400 immigrants it is holding under warrantless arrests or probable cause, placing the detainees on monitoring programs.
A stay on the order was issued by an appeals court on Nov. 20, and a hearing will be held in early December.
Dadfar might have come under scrutiny through Operation Guardian, an effort by ICE to target undocumented immigrants working as truckers.
A trucker from Uzbekistan, accused in his native country of being a member of a terrorist organization, was arrested Nov. 17 as he drove in Kansas, according to DHS. The man was living in Pennsylvania.
Operation Midway Blitz targeted immigrants in the Chicago area, an effort that coincided with Dadfar’s detainment.
Indiana State Police held Dadfar for five hours without providing a reason or a warrant, according to the lawsuit.
He then was sent to Chicago and held by ICE officials there for two days, again without reason, the suit said.
DHS paperwork filed with the lawsuit said Dadfar was detained without bond and would be held in ICE custody pending his immigration proceedings.
His next hearing before an Denver immigration judge on the asylum application is Feb. 3, 2026.
The lawsuit alleges: “Mr. Dadfar was present … under his valid grant of parole, and there existed no justification for his detention or arrest during a routine matter. He was paroled into the U.S. for the purpose of seeking asylum, which he did timely. He was awaiting his court hearing and was not a flight risk.”
Sharma-Crawford said that she had spoken with Dadfar by phone.
He is represented in his asylum case by a Colorado immigration law firm.
The Missouri suit also questions Homeland Security paperwork that states Dadfar denied having a fear of being deported to Afghanistan.
But Dadfar was never asked by immigration officials about his fear of returning to Afghanistan, Sharma-Crawford said.
Attempts to help Afghans who were left stranded after the U.S. withdrawal are ongoing and increasingly difficult.
Thousands have a claim that they aided our military. And some were separated from their families as they tried to board planes after Kabul fell to the Taliban.
President Donald Trump suspended the U.S. refugee program shortly after taking office, leaving immigrants who had already been approved for travel without a route to enter the U.S. And the State Department suspended funding to help resettle Afghan refugees already in the U.S.
Dadfar’s wife said she is grateful and prayerful for the many people who have stepped forward to help her family resettle and, now, to challenge her husband’s detention.
But as time passes, the family’s distress builds.
“Every time Ali calls, he tells them (the younger children) that he is at work and that he is trying to finish work as soon as possible and return home,” she said.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
