Federal race-coding rules are again under scrutiny after an Afghan national accused of making a bomb threat in Fort Worth was classified as “white” in official records under long-standing federal crime reporting standards.
Homeland Security officials say Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, 33, was arrested Tuesday on a state terror charge after allegedly posting a TikTok video in which he claimed he was building a bomb and threatened to target a building in the Fort Worth area.
Alokozay is being held at the Tarrant County Corrections Center on a charge of making a terroristic threat. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lodged a detainer, according to a public post by Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin and confirmation provided to DX by Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn.
Booking Record Lists Afghan Suspect as ‘White’
An image of Alokozay’s booking record shared online by Laura Loomer shows his race listed as “white,” consistent with how federal standards classify people with origins in the Middle East.
According to the Tarrant County inmate roster, Alokozay is classified as “White.” The county’s booking page for CID 1065872 lists him as a white male currently held at the Lon Evans Corrections Center, along with his booking photograph.
Those standards come from the Office of Management and Budget’s Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 — the government-wide rules for collecting and reporting race and ethnicity data that were last revised in 1997.
Under those rules, the minimum federal race categories are American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White. The official definition of “White” is:
“A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.”
Federal agencies, including the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, use those categories when aggregating crime data. As a result, individuals from many Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds — including Afghans — are counted in the “white” category in federal statistics.
Critics say that practice can blur important distinctions in crime data and mislead the public about which groups are actually represented in the “white” crime rate.
Texas Republicans, Local Law Enforcement React
The Dallas Express reached out to newly elected Tarrant County GOP Chairman Tim Davis for comment.
“Why can’t the government just be honest about this?” Davis told DX. “Isn’t this the root of every problem in our culture right now? We’ll never solve the problem of crime in our neighborhoods if we can’t first be honest with each other about where it’s coming from. Republicans across Tarrant County and across Texas are asking for a simple thing — and that’s to just tell the truth.”
Viral Posts Highlight Broader Misclassification Problems
The issue has received renewed attention on social media after users circulated booking records from multiple states showing Hispanic and Middle Eastern inmates labeled as “White,” raising questions about the accuracy of crime reporting and concerns that crimes committed by illegal immigrants may be significantly underreported.
Some posts also included cases where Black individuals were incorrectly listed as White — examples experts attribute to inconsistent data entry, officer-perceived race coding, or legacy software defaults.
While those state-level errors differ from federal policy, both patterns contribute to long-standing concerns about the accuracy of racial crime statistics in FBI datasets.
Arrest Tied to Broader Security Concerns
McLaughlin said Alokozay was arrested by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force after allegedly posting a video indicating he was building a bomb “with an intended target of the Fort Worth area.”
His arrest came one day before another Afghan national — 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal — allegedly shot two West Virginia National Guard members near the White House. One of the soldiers, U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, later died from her injuries. Lakanwal has been charged with first-degree murder in that case.
Like Lakanwal, Alokozay is also an Afghan foreign national who entered the United States during the Biden administration’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, during which 13 American service members were killed.
Trump Cites Evacuation Chaos
In recent remarks highlighted by PBS, President Donald Trump held up a photograph of Afghan evacuees crowded onto a U.S. Air Force C-17 during the 2021 Kabul withdrawal, arguing that the Biden administration’s chaotic evacuation allowed poorly screened foreign nationals to enter the United States. The image, originally released by the U.S. Air Force, has reemerged as officials acknowledge that multiple Afghan nationals charged in recent criminal cases entered the country during that period.
President Donald Trump displays a photo of Afghan evacuees during a PBS interview criticizing the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Federal officials have not publicly discussed whether the incidents are related. Attorney information for Alokozay was not immediately available.