A dad who fought beside U.S. Special Forces is DEAD less than 24 hours after ICE kidnapped him outside his house — and REFUSED to give him his inhaler.
Now the autopsy has been released and is blaming his death on METH, something his family says he never touched.
Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, 41, fought alongside U.S. Army Special Forces in Afghanistan for more than a decade before he and his family were evacuated in 2021 and resettled in Richardson, Texas.
ICE agents seized him outside his home on the morning of March 13 as he was getting his six children ready for school. By 9:10 the next morning he was dead at Parkland Hospital.
The medical examiner ruled it an accident — first reported by Houston Public Media’s Andrew Schneider — anaphylaxis complicating acute asthma, with the toxic effects of methamphetamine, cardiovascular disease and cigarette smoking listed as contributing.
His family says they never knew him to use meth or any illegal drug, and that he had not smoked in years. No agency has explained how a man in custody less than a day was exposed to it.
His wife has said he relied on an inhaler for his asthma, and that ICE agents refused to take the device when they took him.
Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE policy official from 2022 to 2025, said there should be no access to methamphetamine for detainees at all, and asked why an asthma-type reaction could not have been treated on site.
The county had refused for weeks to release the report, after an ICE assistant field office director said disclosure could interfere with a federal criminal investigation that has never been publicly described.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, pressing for the records, asked bluntly what crime is being investigated. The death certificate also lists the date of his fatal injury as March 12, the day before ICE took him.
Homeland Security posted that there was no record of his military service. A certificate from the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group thanks Paktiawal for his “sacrifice and service.” DHS also cited arrests for alleged SNAP fraud and theft. No charges were ever recorded.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin promised Rep. Julie Johnson an investigation into the death roughly two months ago. DHS has not said where it stands.