A federal judge in Missouri on Monday ordered the immediate release of Afghan asylum seeker Mohammad Ali Dadfar, ruling that the government violated its own parole rule and the “constitutional right to due process” when it detained him without notice this fall.
The decision marks a major development in a case that has drawn concern from the Louisville community, where with his family for over a year while pursuing asylum through the Denver Immigration Court.
As of Monday, Dadfar was on his way back to Colorado to be reunited with his family, according to his immigration attorney, Tiago Guevara.
A former worker for the National Directorate of Security under the U.S.-backed Afghan government, Dadfar fled Afghanistan with his wife and four children after the Taliban regained control in 2021 and arrived to the U.S. in June 2024 after securing an appointment through the federal Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app. The federal government paroled the family into the U.S., and that humanitarian parole was issued to be valid until June 2026, a federal record shows.
Dadfar then settled in Boulder County, filed his asylum application on time, obtained work authorization, and began truck driving while waiting for a hearing in Denver.
But on Oct. 10, during a trucking route through Indiana, Dadfar was stopped at a weigh station and detained for more than five hours for Chicago Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to pick him up, the judge’s Monday order says. Dadfar had no criminal history, according to an I-213 paper, the form that documents a person’s encounter with immigration authorities. ICE transported him to a holding facility in Illinois before transferring him to Greene County Jail in Missouri,
‘Core liberty interest’
In an 11-page order, the judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri Southern Division found that ICE’s arrest and continued detention were improper on multiple grounds.
The court concluded that ICE violated its own regulation governing the termination of parole. Under federal rule, parole can be automatically revoked only in certain cases, such as if a person leaves the U.S. or if the parole period expires, according to the order. Dadfar’s parole had not expired, and he had not departed the country, the order says.
“Respondents revoked Petitioner’s parole without prior written notice,” the judge wrote.
The judge also ruled that ICE violated the Fifth Amendmentap due process clause, writing that Dadfar had a “core liberty interest” in remaining free while his asylum case proceeded. The government provided no evidence that he was a flight risk or posed danger to the community, the court said, and failed to show any “material change in circumstances” that would justify his arrest.
The judge ordered ICE to release Dadfar immediately, return him to “a reasonable proximity” of his Colorado home, and restore the conditions of his original parole. The court said Dadfar is eligible to seek attorney fees.
The order came in response to a petition for habeas corpus — a legal request for a judge to review whether someone’s detention is lawful and order their release if it is not. The case was against the acting assistant field office director for ICE Chicago, “DHS” and the Greene County sheriff.
Trump’s move on asylum cases
One question that remained is whether the Trump administration’s recent move to pause the processing of asylum applications will affect the Dadfars’ asylum case. The administration made that announcement following the Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. The suspect is an Afghan man who had been in the U.S. in April, the Associated Press reported.
The administration said it was pausing asylum decisions, reexamining green card applications for people from countries “of concern” and halting visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. war effort. Days before the shooting, by the Associated Press said the administration would review the cases of all refugees who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration, the AP reported.
“It’s still uncertain exactly how the pause will affect this specific case,” Guevara said on Monday.
Guevara said it is also unclear whether this will motivate the administration to attempt to revoke parole determinations for Afghans that “had nothing to do with the DC shooting.”
Guevara said he is concerned about “unlawful attempts to revoke people’s parole without an individualized determination of whether the particular parolee is a flight risk or a danger.”
“In theory, Mohammad and his family can only have their parole revoked if there has been a material change that makes them a flight risk or a danger,” he added.
Guevara said once Dadfar arrives back in Colorado, he would file a motion to change the venue of his case back to Denver.
