WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up an appeal involving the contested adoption of an Afghan girl orphaned during a U.S. Army raid.
The girl’s relatives had asked the justices to intervene after a U.S. Marine who helped evacuate them from Afghanistan took custody of the child, despite efforts by the State Department to reunite her with her Afghan family.
An Associated Press investigation published in 2022 brought the case to the attention of senior officials around the world, including the Taliban and the White House.
The child’s parents were killed in September 2019 during a raid on a rural compound by U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan forces.
Rescuers found the baby in the wreckage and took her to a hospital at Bagram Air Base near Kabul. There, military lawyer Joshua Mast and his wife decided they wanted to adopt her.
During President Donald Trump’s first administration, however, the State Department worked with the Afghan government to locate surviving relatives. Officials identified a cousin and his wife.
The Afghan couple cared for the girl for 18 months. During that period, the Masts secured a final adoption order from a Virginia court without notifying the couple. The Masts have said they acted honorably, seeking to protect the child and provide her with a loving home.
In 2021, Joshua Mast helped the Afghan family leave the country during the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal.
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After they arrived in the United States, Mast took the girl from a refugee resettlement center over the objections of her relatives.
The Afghan couple then went to court, asking judges to invalidate an adoption they argued had been legally flawed from the outset. Virginia’s lower courts sided with them. The state’s highest court, however, ruled for the Masts, citing a six-month deadline under Virginia law.
The appeal to the Supreme Court received support from a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, along with organizations representing veterans and international adoptees.
The Masts challenge the family’s claimed relationship to the girl and argue that revisiting the adoption would cause major disruption. The child is now 7 and has lived with the Masts’ family for years.
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Galofaro reported from Louisville, Kentucky.
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