When a member of the Afghan military was targeted by the Taliban because he served with U.S. soldiers, he fled to the United States to seek asylum. Upon his arrival, the U.S. government put him in jail for more than five months while his case was pending in the immigration courts.

Nearly a year after his detention, Jamil told his story. In a segment that aired last fall on Chicago's WTTW-TV, Jamil described how, after he served as an officer in the Afghan army and came to the United States to learn English so he could work with U.S. soldiers, he returned home to find out that the Taliban had killed his brother and burned down the school run by his wife. He quickly fled to the United States to seek asylum, and was arrested by immigration officers at the airport for not having the proper visa.

"I had no hope in Afghanistan, I had no choice," Jamil explained on the Chicago Tonight news program. "My only hope was to come to the United States in the hopes of the United States helping me for what I have done."

Instead, Jamil was handcuffed, jumpsuited, and taken to McHenry County Jail outside Chicago.

"We're seeing this [immigration] enforcement policy that has heightened to arrest and detain individuals no matter what the circumstances, without even looking at the circumstances," NIJC Director Mary Meg McCarthy explains in the story.

Jamil's identity is obscured in the online video in order to protect his family in Afghanistan, but the story is still powerful.

Watch the video here.