An Afghan national released under President Biden’s 2021 Operation Allies Welcome drew a 35-year federal prison term after prosecutors said he filmed sexual assaults of minors in Texas.
Federal prosecutors announced that 21-year-old Badshah Sahi was sentenced this month in the Northern District of Texas after pleading guilty in April to producing and possessing child pornography. Breitbart News reported the case and the official statements that followed the sentence.
Police arrested Sahi in February 2025. Officers found photos and videos on his phone showing a prepubescent girl, along with communications with minors. Prosecutors described a pattern of online contact that turned into in-person assaults and recorded abuse.
The case lands squarely on a failed vetting decision. Homeland Security Investigations said Sahi entered the United States through Operation Allies Welcome during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, then went on to target children in North Texas and online.
According to the prosecutor account, Sahi communicated last year with a 14-year-old girl, picked her up outside her home, took her to different locations, and sexually assaulted her. He also used the online game platform Roblox to coerce a 10-year-old child in Indiana into sending sexually explicit videos.
Prosecutors further said he communicated with a 15-year-old girl, met her, sexually assaulted her, and filmed the assault. Those acts formed the basis for the production and possession charges that produced the 35-year term.
Cases like this keep forcing the same accountability question raised in other Biden-era release decisions, including an illegal immigrant rideshare driver charged in a separate underage rape case tied to prior enforcement failures.
Sahi’s path into the country was not a local policing glitch. It was a national admissions program run during a chaotic withdrawal, and federal officials now say the screening did not stop a predator from reaching American children.
Homeland Security Investigations’ Antwoine Jones put the failure in plain terms after the sentence.
"This dangerous child sex offender was recklessly released into the United States without proper vetting during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and went on to prey on innocent children both here in North Texas and online,"
Jones added that agents and their partners finally took him off the street.
"Thankfully, working with our law enforcement partners, we were able to remove him from the local community and ensure he spends the next 35 years behind bars where he won’t be able to harm any more children."
That statement frames the core policy problem. A man later convicted of filming and producing child sex abuse material was admitted under a Biden administration relocation effort, then lived free long enough to contact multiple minors before his February 2025 arrest.
Immigration enforcement fights continue on related fronts, including a federal judge’s concession on ending Haiti TPS, as courts sort through protections and admissions left by the prior administration.
U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould used the sentence to warn other offenders in his district.
"This lengthy sentence sends a resounding message: Child predators will find no safe harbor in the Northern District of Texas,"
Raybould continued with a direct enforcement pledge.
"We will find them and ensure they face the full weight of federal prosecution. Our commitment to protecting children is absolute, and we hope this outcome serves as a clear deterrent to anyone contemplating similar crimes."
The office’s message is clear on punishment after the fact. The harder question is how a defendant now serving 35 years cleared intake in 2021 and remained free until early 2025.
Detention rules matter in that gap. A Fifth Circuit ruling on detention during deportation proceedings underscores the broader fight over whether removable offenders stay loose while cases grind on.
The verified timeline is short and damning. In 2021, Sahi was released into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome. Relative timing in the case places communication and the assault of the 14-year-old in the prior year. In February 2025, police arrested him and recovered phone evidence of a prepubescent girl and contacts with minors. He pleaded guilty in April. This month he received 35 years in federal prison.
No public motive appears in the available record. What does appear is method: Roblox contact, phone communications, in-person pickups, sexual assaults, and filming. The victims identified in the prosecutor summary were 10, 14, and 15, plus the prepubescent girl shown in images on his phone.
Readers tracking Biden-era federal fallout see the same pattern elsewhere, from climate-cash litigation such as the D.C. Circuit fight over $20 billion in climate funds to criminal cases that surface years after rushed policy choices.
North Texas families did not design Operation Allies Welcome. They lived with its result until Homeland Security Investigations and local partners made the arrest. The sentence now locks Sahi away for decades. It does not revise the 2021 intake decision that put him in the country in the first place.
When officials open the door without hard vetting, children pay first, and prosecutors are left to clean up the damage years later.