An Afghan migrant on the terror watchlist spent nearly a year inside the U.S. after being apprehended and released by Border Patrol agents in 2023, U.S. officials tell NBC News. The Afghan national was arrested in February and then released last month again by an immigration judge who was not told he was a national security threat.
Mohammad Kharwin, 48, was freed on bond as he awaited an immigration hearing in Texas, scheduled for 2025. There were no restrictions on his movements inside the United States, U.S. officials said.
(After this article was published, a DHS spokesperson said that Kharwin was taken into custody late Thursday evening. They did not provide further details.)
Kharwin was initially apprehended on March 10, 2023, near San Ysidro, California, after crossing the Mexico-U.S. border illegally.
Border agents suspected he was on the U.S. terrorist watchlist at the time of his apprehension because one piece of information matched an individual on the list. But the agents lacked corroborating information, which officials declined to describe, that would confirm Kharwin was the person they suspected, according to U.S. officials.
After processing Kharwin and taking his biometric data, Customs and Border Protection released him as they would any other migrant, without alerting Immigration and Customs Enforcement about possible terrorism ties, U.S. officials said.
