The medical death record cites an adverse drug reaction and meth as the fatal combination. His relatives reject that explanation as unthinkable.
On the morning of March 13, Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, an Afghan immigrant, was detained by authorities as he prepared to take his children to school. His wife informed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that he needed an inhaler to breathe, but the officers did not take the inhaler, nor did they permit her to provide it afterward. Within a day, the former member of Afghanistan’s National Army Special Operations Command was dead.
Paktiawal began to experience shortness of breath shortly after arriving at the ICE detention facility. When he called his brother, Naseer Paktiawal, to alert him to his condition, Naseer reported a medical emergency at the detention center. Paktiawal was transported to Parkland Hospital at 11:30 p.m. He was stabilized, but he later developed swelling of his tongue while he was eating breakfast. He died roughly forty minutes later, around 9 a.m. His family did not learn of his death until about noon.
For more than three months after Paktiawal’s death, the Dallas Medical Examiner’s office released little information, listing the cause of death in an online record as an “accident.”
Although an autopsy has not been publicly released, a death certificate provided to Reason indicates that the immediate cause of death was anaphylaxis, described as a complication of an acute asthma flare. The certificate places the time and location of the injury as 11:30 p.m. at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas on March 12, nearly 12 hours before his arrest the following day. It states the injury occurred in the aftermath of an “adverse drug reaction and ingestion of [an] illicit drug.” The document notes “toxic effects of methamphetamine” as well as “atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease” and cigarette smoking as significant contributing conditions.
AfghanEvac president Shawn VanDiver told Reason that when he requested an autopsy, he was informed by an ICE official that the autopsy should not be released. “If the death certificate’s toxicology finding is correct, no government agency has explained how a man who had been in ICE custody for less than 24 hours could have been exposed to a prohibited substance, or whether investigators believe the exposure happened before or after he entered government custody,” VanDiver said to Reason.
VanDiver notes that an independent forensic examiner was unable to perform a separate toxicology test because Paktiawal’s body had already been embalmed when the examiner conducted the review. The independent examiner reportedly disagreed with several aspects of the Dallas Medical Examiner’s analysis, including the possibility that asthma contributed to Paktiawal’s anaphylactic reaction.
The Dallas Medical Examiner did not respond to Reason‘s request for comment.
Naseer says that he never knew his brother to use drugs, and that he had quit smoking two years before his death. He previously drove semi-trucks before Texas stopped issuing commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens in September 2025. “A person who uses drugs is unlikely to pass a required duty physical for a truck driver,” Naseer explained. “When you operate a semi, you must pass a rigorous medical examination, which includes blood tests, hair analysis, oral checks, and even urine tests.”
Naseer adds that members of the local Afghan community ask him every day about the autopsy results. “They say, ‘We’re not in Afghanistan, we’re in America. Why is this taking so long?’”‘
In the wake of his brother’s death, Naseer is driving a large truck to support his own four children as well as Paktiawal’s wife and six children. “I don’t want any handouts from the government to support my family or theirs,” he says. “What I want is to know exactly what happened to my brother.”
Rather than addressing questions about Paktiawal’s death, federal agencies have circulated misinformation about the 41-year-old father. In a statement announcing his death, ICE described him as a “criminal illegal alien,” citing two prior arrests for alleged SNAP fraud. NBC later reported that federal officials claimed Paktiawal “had no record” of military service.
In fact, VanDiver says, Paktiawal served alongside U.S. Army Special Forces in Afghanistan for more than ten years within the Afghan National Army’s Special Operations Command. He and his family were evacuated to the United States during the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he was pursuing permanent residency through an active asylum case, according to VanDiver.
Naseer notes that his brother “was not simply an ordinary immigrant; he fought alongside American troops with the Special Forces, shoulder to shoulder they battled the Taliban.” He explains that when Paktiawal came to the United States, he believed the hardships would be worth it to provide a better life for his children. “He survived the Taliban, he survived the war, but he believed this country would be a safe haven for him and his family—and he was mistaken.”
For the hardest moment, Naseer says, is when his brother’s youngest child, who has just turned three, asks when his father will return home. “I have nothing to say to him,” Naseer admits. “The pain we endure as a family—it’s not easy to look into their eyes and hear them ask for their dad.”
In a press statement to AfghanEvac, Representative Julie Johnson (D–Texas) asserted that Paktiawal’s family “deserves to know exactly what happened. Congress deserves answers, and the American people deserve transparency whenever someone dies in federal custody.” Johnson noted that the response has been silence, with no details about the medical care provided, the officers’ response time, the lack of an immediate ambulance, or whether there is video footage of Paktiawal in custody. “Transparency is not optional,” Johnson continued. “Accountability is not optional. There is no excuse for withholding the autopsy from his family, even if the case remains under investigation.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters in June that “the failure to present evidence and facts is part of a broader effort to conceal the truth from the family and the American public.” He added that Paktiawal came to America believing in its ideals and sought asylum from brutal forces in his homeland, where he had fought for freedom and democracy. He arrived hoping for the best, but instead confronted the worst of our system.
Between 2009 and 2024, Reuters reported, an average of one inmate died for every 3,848 detainees in immigration facilities. Since 2025, that rate has risen to one death per 1,630 detainees. Reuters notes that more than 50 immigrants have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump assumed office, marking a doubling of immigrant deaths under his current term.
VanDiver has traveled to Texas on several occasions to meet with Paktiawal’s family and the affected Afghan community. “I’ve learned that these stories aren’t about policy; they’re about people,” he said in June. Paktiawal “was not just a case number, he wasn’t merely a file in immigration; he was a father, a husband, a brother, and a teammate. He was someone whose children expected him to come home,” VanDiver added.
