A suspected member of a “virulently anti-Western” terrorist group was turned loose by federal authorities after being apprehended crossing the US-Mexico border and, later, freed again when he went before an immigration judge, according to a report.
Customs and Border Protection agents apprehended and released Mohammad Kharwin, 48, after he illegally entered the US near San Ysidro, Calif., in March of 2023, despite suspicions the Afghan national was on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist, according to NBC News.
Kharwin was released under Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “Alternatives to Detention” program – a process that generally requires migrants to submit to GPS tracking or reporting their whereabouts on a smartphone app – after CBP agents couldn’t definitively determine he was on the terror watchlist.
Almost a year later, the FBI notified ICE that Kharwin was a suspected member of the US-designated foreign terror group Hezb-e-Islami, or HIG.
HIG, which operates out of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, is described by the National Counterterrorism Center as a “virulently anti-Western insurgent group” responsible for the deaths of several US soldiers and American contractors.
ICE agents arrested Kharwin on Feb. 28 in San Antonio, Texas, according to the outlet, but his time in custody was short-lived.
ICE prosecutors failed to inform the Texas immigration judge handling Kharwin’s detention proceedings about his suspected ties to HIG because the information purportedly linking him to the terror group was classified, US officials told NBC News.
As a result, the judge, rather than ordering Kharwin to be deported or detained, freed the suspected terror group member on March 30 after he posted a $12,000 bond.
The judge placed no restrictions on Kharwin’s movements inside the US.
He is required to appear before the court again for a hearing in 2025.
ICE has not appealed the ruling.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The Post Friday that Kharwin was back in custody.
“At the time of the initial encounter, the information in the record could not have provided a conclusive match. As soon as there was information to suggest that this individual was of concern, he was taken into custody by ICE,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Law enforcement has been tracking the matter closely to protect against public safety risks. The individual is currently in U.S. custody,” the spokesperson added.
Kharwin’s re-arrest occurred late Thursday, according to NBC News.
The Post has reached out to ICE for comment.
Border Patrol agents have encountered 370 migrants on the terror watchlist illegally crossing between ports of entry since 2017, according to CBP statistics.
Numbers shot up under President Biden, with 172 migrants with suspected terrorism ties encountered in 2023 and 70 in the current fiscal year.
Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray told senators that the bureau is “very concerned” about human smuggling networks with ties to terror groups that utilize the southern border to gain entry into the US.
During the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Wray suggested that it was a distinct possibility that terrorists could be among the 1.8 million “gotaways,” or people who illegally made their way into the US without being apprehended by border agents, under the Biden administration.
“I think there are many ways the national security ramifications of the issues at the border are better reflected in some ways more by what we don’t know about the people who snuck in, provided fake documents or in some other way, got in when there wasn’t sufficient information about the time they came in to connect the dots,” he said.
