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On March 13, multiple Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in unmarked vehicles surrounded Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal in front of his home in Texas as he prepared to drive his children to school. The 41-year-old father of six children, who had served alongside the 3rd Battali...
The death of Paktyawal represents a critical failure of trust within a complex and increasingly opaque system – the U.S. immigration detention apparatus. The immediate facts – a 41-year-old former special forces operative, a product of the U.S. military’s intervention in Afghanistan, dying within 24 hours of government contact – immediately trigger a pattern we’ve seen repeatedly: the dehumanization and systematic denial of care to vulnerable populations deemed “other.” This isn’t just about a s...