By Julia Ainsley—
NBC News
When an Afghan citizen included on the FBI's list of terrorism suspects was detained last Thursday after spending almost a year in the United States, immigration officials said he had been enrolled in a program that tracked his location through a monitor. ankle, a mobile application or cell phone.
However, the man's participation in this monitoring program, known as Alternatives to Detention, lasted only a little more than two weeks, according to NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo.
Mohammad Kharwin, 48, is therefore believed to have spent about 10 months in the United States without any type of surveillance system, according to sources familiar with his case.
Kharwin is listed on the national terrorist watch list as a member of Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), a political and paramilitary group in Afghanistan that the United States has designated as terrorist.
HIG was responsible for attacks in Afghanistan in which at least nine US soldiers and civilians died between 2013 and 2015. However, it is not considered a major threat in terms of attacks within the United States.
Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
NBC News reported last week that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents first detained Kharwin on March 10, 2023, near San Ysidro, California, after he illegally crossed the border from Mexico.
At the time, CBP agents did not have all the information on Kharwin and could not confirm that he was on the terrorist watch list, so they treated him like other low-risk migrants arriving in the United States.
When border agents released him, Kharwin was referred to Alternatives to Detention, run by ICE. Kharwin was enrolled in the tracking program on March 12, 2023, and then removed on March 28, 2023, without it being known why.
About a year later, in February 2024, ICE agents detained Kharwin after the FBI passed them information indicating he had possible terrorist ties. But when Kharwin appeared in court, ICE prosecutors did not share with the immigration judge some classified information that supposedly demonstrated ties to a terrorist group, two U.S. officials said.
Prosecutors argued that Kharwin should be held without bail because he posed a flight risk, but did not say he was a national security risk, according to sources familiar with the case.
The judge ordered him released on $12,000 bail.
After NBC News broke the news on Thursday that Kharwin was in the US, he was detained in San Antonio, Texas, and taken into ICE custody, according to a Homeland Security spokesperson.
Experts said Kharwin's case raises questions about the way immigrants who may pose a security threat are investigated and tracked in the country.
It also raises questions about the Alternatives to Detention program, which Democrat Joe Biden's administration has greatly expanded to monitor hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are in the United States waiting to appear in immigration court.
Congressional Republicans, who oppose the program, have cut its funding, forcing ICE to stop monitoring immigrants, often as soon as they first show up at the agency's offices.
In February 2023, NBC News reported that Homeland Security officials said they would have to begin removing immigrants from Alternatives to Detention because Congress had not provided adequate funding.
It is unclear how ICE determines which migrants it should expel from the program. The Department of Homeland Security can also collaborate with other law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, to gather information and learn the whereabouts of migrants.
A Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that many immigrants who present a low flight risk are not held in the program until their court appearance, which can be a year or more away.
An estimated 183,901 immigrants have spent an average of 554 days in detention centers, according to data from the Syracuse University Immigration Clearinghouse. At the time Kharwin was kicked out of the program, 281,613 immigrants had been there an average of 429 days.
A source familiar with the program who spoke on condition of anonymity defended it, saying Alternatives to Detention is “the only way to track an individual through GPS technology.” The source added: “Otherwise you are dependent on people showing up of their own volition.”
The Alternatives to Detention program began in 2004, during the Administration of Republican George W. Bush. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the number of immigrants absconding from the program has “decreased dramatically” in recent years, and enrollment in the program increases the chances that immigrants will show up for their immigration court hearings.
Immigrant advocates praise the program as a more humane and less costly way
with which the Government can control immigrants awaiting hearings. Congressional Republicans have pressured Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for not filling all the beds in ICE detention centers.
Immigrants crossing the southern border are rare on the terrorist watch list.
An NBC News analysis found that the percentage of migrants on the terrorist watch list as a proportion of the total number of CBP encounters across all US borders was slightly lower during the Biden Administration than during that of Republican Donald Trump. It remained at an average of 0.02% during the Biden administration, lower than the 0.05% under former President Donald Trump.