An Afghan man who helped the U.S. military during America’s longest war is now being fast-tracked for deportation after being arrested by immigration officials earlier this month, his lawyer and supporters said Monday.
Sayed Naser Noori, whose legal team has provided reporters with paperwork confirming he worked with the military as an interpreter and logistics contractor, had his asylum case tossed by an immigration judge last week, allowing the Trump administration to begin processing him for expedited removal, his lawyer, Brian McGoldrick, told reporters during a news conference.
“I believed in you. I worked with you. I helped you for years, side by side. I trusted your words and followed your rules. That trust brought me here,” Noori said in a written statement read aloud by a supporter during Monday’s news conference. “Now, I sit in detention, treated like a criminal for doing exactly what I was told to do. I crossed borders to be safe, I asked for protection the right way, and yet I am punished.”
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Noori’s last hope to avoid deportation is a so-called credible fear interview, which migrants slated for expedited removal are entitled to to determine whether they might be eligible for asylum. Noori requested an interview, and immigration officials have acknowledged his right to one, but an interview hasn’t been scheduled yet, McGoldrick said. Theoretically, Noori cannot be deported until after the interview.
Earlier this month, Noori was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a federal courthouse in San Diego after he appeared at a routine hearing in his case for asylum, becoming the first publicly known Afghan who helped the U.S. military to be caught in the Trump administration’s tactic of rounding up migrants at courthouses.
Noori’s arrest was captured on video that circulated on social media and got a significant boost in publicity by #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that has helped relocate Afghans threatened by the Taliban since the end of the war in 2021.
Noori’s supporters originally requested reporters withhold his last name for his protection but #AfghanEvac is now using it publicly after the Department of Homeland Security identified him by his full name in public statements.
Noori’s legal team had originally requested reporters withhold his last name for his protection but is now using it publicly after the Department of Homeland Security identified him by his full name in public statements.
Noori worked as translator for the U.S. military from 2011 to 2013 and then, alongside two brothers, founded a transportation and freight company that contracted with the military from 2014 to 2021.
One of his brothers was granted asylum in the U.S. earlier this year. The other brother was murdered by the Taliban in 2023 because of the family’s work with the U.S. military, Noori wrote in a declaration included in his application for asylum.
When the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban swept back into power, Noori went into hiding in Afghanistan while he waited for approval for his application for a Special Immigrant Visa, the visa program specifically for Afghans who helped the U.S. military.
After his brother’s murder, he fled and applied for asylum in the U.S. The Biden administration granted him humanitarian parole to enter the country while his asylum case was pending, and he entered legally through a port of entry in Southern California in 2024, McGoldrick has said.
When he was first arrested by ICE agents earlier this month, he was not at imminent risk of deportation because a judge had not yet dismissed his asylum case despite the federal government requesting a dismissal. But last week, the judge granted the dismissal, and the Trump administration subsequently put him in expedited removal proceedings, McGoldrick said.
It’s unclear where Noori could be deported following the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that allows the Trump administration to deport migrants to countries other than their own without notice, McGoldrick added.
“To President Trump, I love America, and I was building a life here,” Noori said in the statement read at Monday’s news conference. “I had a car. I had a bank account. I had a job. Who will take care of all that now that I’m in detention? Instead of locking us away with no warning, why not offer us a shelter or some support?”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to Military.com’s request for comment Monday.
The department previously confirmed that Noori was arrested by ICE agents in a statement that also denied he assisted the U.S. government despite the paperwork his lawyers gave to reporters proving otherwise.
The Department of Homeland Security is “full of shi–” in denying that Noori assisted U.S. forces, Shawn VanDiver, founder of #AfghanEvac, said at Monday’s news conference, adding his organization verified Noori’s identity.
Noori’s case has prompted #AfghanEvac and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to launch a new program called Battle Buddies that is encouraging veterans to escort Afghan allies at their immigration hearings so they know veterans support them and possibly are spared from a courthouse arrest like Noori’s.
No veteran has gone to a court hearing yet, but more than 225 veterans from 43 states have signed up to do so since the program launched last week, VanDiver said.
Meanwhile, some members of Congress, including at least one Republican publicly, have been lobbying for Noori’s release.
“It just disturbs me that we’ve got somebody in detention who served by all accounts admirably alongside American servicemen, probably saved their lives because those interpreters were embedded in the community,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who announced over the weekend he will retire from the Senate, said in a recent floor speech. “And I think we owe it to this person to get him out of detention and into some status to determine which country he should go.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct who is publicly using Sayed Naser Noori’s full name.
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