How a U.S. Marine Adopted an Afghan Baby Girl — Even Though the Government Said No

Newly released documents expose a troubling case in which a U.S. Marine’s adoption of an Afghan orphan was fast-tracked through a small-town Virginia court, despite the Afghan government’s efforts to reunite her with family. The Justice Department now argues the adoption threatens the nation’s standing in the world and appears to endorse child abduction. (VIEW PICTURE)

Imagine this: A tiny baby girl, just two months old, pulled from the rubble after a fierce U.S. military raid in Afghanistan. Her parents are gone. She’s badly hurt — burns, a broken leg, a fractured skull. American soldiers rush her to a military hospital, and everyone falls in love with her little smile amid all the chaos of war.

That baby became a symbol of hope in a hopeless place. But what happened next turned into one of the strangest, most tangled family stories ever — a real-life drama involving a determined U.S. Marine, a small-town Virginia judge, a confused government bureaucracy, and an Afghan family who says their baby was taken from them.

Now, after years of secret court fights and a big win by The Associated Press to get the hidden records released, we finally know the full, messy truth.

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The Raid That Started It All

Back in September 2019, U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan forces hit a rural compound. They were going after terrorists crossing the border. In the fighting, the baby’s parents (and reportedly five siblings) were killed. Soldiers found the little girl crying in the debris. They named her a war orphan and got her medical care at Bagram Air Base.

Doctors and nurses there doted on her as she healed. She was a bright spot in a long, tough war.

But here’s where things got complicated. A U.S. Marine named Joshua Mast, who was working as a military lawyer in Afghanistan at the time, met the baby and felt a deep pull. He and his wife Stephanie, back home in Virginia with their three sons, are devout Evangelical Christians. They believed God was calling them to save this child.

Mast started pushing hard to bring her to America. He told people she was “stateless” — no real family, no country to claim her — because her parents were supposedly nomadic fighters with no ties to Afghanistan.

The Government Said No — But Some Officials Said Yes

The U.S. State Department saw it differently. They held meetings with Afghan officials and the military. Under international rules, the baby belonged with her extended family if they could be found. Afghan law also doesn’t let non-Muslims adopt Afghan kids. The plan was clear: Track down relatives and reunite them.

Mast attended some of those meetings, but he didn’t give up. He called home, talked it over with Stephanie, and they decided to try anyway. His brother, a lawyer at a conservative Christian firm, filed papers in a tiny Virginia county court saying the baby needed them.

A local judge quickly gave temporary custody, calling her “stateless” based on what Mast said. Later, Fluvanna County Circuit Judge Richard Moore made it a full adoption — even though the baby was still 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan, living with her cousin and his wife, who the Afghan government had already decided were her family.

The Judge Thought It Was a Life-or-Death Emergency

Fast-forward to secret court hearings in Virginia in 2022. Judge Moore explained why he signed off: He truly believed the baby was dying, abandoned, with no one to claim her. It was an emergency rescue, he thought.

Then a government lawyer stood up. “That’s not what happened,” she said. Almost everything was wrong. The baby wasn’t dying anymore. She had family. The Afghan government hadn’t given up on her. In fact, U.S. officials in the Trump administration had already helped place her with relatives months before the adoption papers were signed.

The judge was stunned. How could this happen?

A Total Government Mix-Up: Left Hand vs. Right Hand

The newly released thousands of pages of records paint a picture of pure chaos inside the U.S. government.

One part of the government — the State Department — was working to find and reunite the baby with her Afghan family. Another part — some military folks and resettlement workers — helped Mast every step of the way. They added the family to evacuation flights during the frantic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. When the Afghan couple and the little girl (now a toddler) landed in the U.S., officials at a Virginia refugee center looked at Mast’s adoption papers and handed the child over without double-checking.

As one later judge put it: “The left hand of the United States is doing one thing, and the right hand is doing something else.”

The Justice Department now calls it a disaster — saying the adoption looks like child abduction to the world and hurts America’s reputation. They blame the Virginia court for skipping normal checks, like proving the child was really eligible for adoption or notifying Afghan authorities properly.

The Masts insist they acted out of pure love and nobility. Joshua Mast says he still believes the story he told the judge — that the girl had no future in a war-torn country. He won’t talk much publicly because of court orders, but he’s fought hard to keep her.

What Happened to the Little Girl?

During the messy U.S. exit from Afghanistan in summer 2021, the Afghan couple fled with the child (with Mast’s help getting them on a plane). Once in Virginia, the Masts used the adoption order to take her. She’s been living with them ever since.

But courts have stepped in. A judge voided the adoption in 2023, saying it never should have happened. An appeals court agreed in 2024. The case has bounced around, and her future is still up in the air. The Afghan couple is suing to get her back, saying they were tricked.

A Tough Lesson in Good Intentions and Broken Systems

This isn’t just about one family — it’s about how rules get bent, paperwork gets rushed, and a child’s life gets caught in the middle.

Judge Moore later wondered aloud if he should have just said no. “I’ll probably think about this the rest of my life,” he said in court.

For the little girl at the center of it all, now a young child growing up in America, the questions linger: Where does she truly belong? Who gets to decide?

The records are out now, thanks to the AP’s long fight. They show no easy heroes or villains — just a heartbreaking collision of war, faith, bureaucracy, and a desperate wish to save one innocent life.

Marine’s Adoption of an Afghan Orphan Became a Legal Mess

A U.S. Marine’s attempt to adopt an Afghan baby orphaned in a war zone has turned into a complex legal battle, revealing a series of missteps and a clash between good intentions and international law.

Joshua Mast, a Marine, and his wife, Stephanie, wanted to adopt a baby girl who lost her parents in a U.S. military raid in Afghanistan. They believed she was a stateless orphan in desperate need of medical care. A local judge, Richard Moore, agreed to grant them a temporary adoption in November 2019, even though the baby was thousands of miles away.

Judge Moore said he was told the baby urgently needed medical attention and that adoption would help get her to America. He issued a new birth certificate, making the Masts her legal parents.

Government Intervention

However, the U.S. government says it wasn’t notified about the adoption and that the baby wasn’t stateless. They were already working to reunite her with her uncle, who had come forward to claim her. The government argued that the baby was Afghan and should be with her family, not adopted by Americans.

Despite the government’s efforts, Mast continued to pursue the adoption. He even got help from a staffer for Senator Ted Cruz to try to speed up the process. Mast claimed the baby had been living with him in Virginia since September 2019, even though she had never been to the U.S. He also claimed her injuries were from child abuse.

The situation eventually reached Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who dismissed the adoption as “flawed.” The U.S. government then put the baby on a plane to meet her relatives in Afghanistan.

Despite the baby being reunited with her family, Mast continued to fight for the adoption in court. He argued that the Afghan family wasn’t biologically related to the baby and questioned their suitability as parents.

In December 2020, Judge Moore granted a final adoption, declaring the Masts the baby’s permanent parents. He said she was a “stateless” orphan under his court’s jurisdiction.

Lawyers for the government, the Afghan family, and the child have pointed out numerous problems with the adoption. They argue that the court ignored legal requirements and that there’s no Virginia law allowing a judge to adopt out a foreign child without her home country’s consent.

Taliban’s View

Even the Taliban, which now controls Afghanistan, has criticized the adoption, calling it “inhumane” and urging the U.S. to return the girl to her relatives.

This case highlights the complexities of international adoption and the potential for good intentions to lead to unintended consequences.

A Tragic Start on the Battlefield

In the chaos of war and a messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, one little girl’s life became the center of a heartbreaking international custody battle that has dragged on for years. This is the story of a baby girl—often called “Baby Doe” or “Sparrow” in court papers—who was orphaned as an infant, raised by an Afghan couple, and then taken by an American Marine family in a way that many call deeply wrong.

Back in September 2019, during a U.S. military operation in rural Afghanistan, a family was killed in a raid. Among the victims were a couple and their five children. Their newborn baby girl was badly injured—burned on her face and neck—and left alone in the rubble. U.S. soldiers found her, rushed her to a military hospital, and saved her life. At first, she seemed like a true orphan with no family left.

The Afghan government (before the Taliban takeover) stepped in to find her relatives. They located extended family members—a couple who were relatives—and placed the baby with them. For the next 18 months, this Afghan couple raised her as their own daughter, loving her, caring for her wounds, and giving her a home.

Meanwhile, U.S. Marine Major Joshua Mast, a lawyer serving in Afghanistan at the time, learned about the baby. He and his wife Stephanie felt called to help her—driven by faith and a desire to give her a better life in America. They believed she should be adopted by them.
But the U.S. government, under then-President Trump, had a clear policy: reunite the child with her Afghan family. Officials worked with Afghan authorities to do just that. In fact, they blocked early attempts by the Masts to take her.

The Masts didn’t give up. They convinced a judge in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia, to grant them an adoption—even though the baby was thousands of miles away in Afghanistan and living with her caregivers. The judge later said he thought it was an emergency and trusted the Marine’s story.

The Chaotic Escape and a Sudden Separation
Everything changed in summer 2021. The U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban seized power, and thousands of Afghans fled in panic. Mast reached out to the Afghan couple directly, promising to help get all three—the couple and the little girl—out safely to America. He worked with a translator and used his military contacts.
The couple agreed, believing the girl would get medical help and a brighter future. Amid the evacuation rush, Mast got them added to flight lists. They flew to Germany, then to the U.S., landing at a refugee center in Virginia.

What the Afghan couple didn’t expect: the Masts planned to take the girl permanently. In Germany, the Masts tried to explain it as “sacrificial love” for her best life. The Afghan man got angry, even threatening to go back to Afghanistan. But they were eventually persuaded to continue to the U.S.

At Fort Pickett in Virginia, government officials handed the crying baby over to the Masts. The Afghan woman begged, “Please give me my daughter—she is my daughter.” She collapsed in tears as the child was carried away. The couple later described it as feeling like a kidnapping.
Years of Court Battles
The Afghan couple fought back. They hired lawyers (many working for free) and challenged the adoption in Virginia courts.
One judge granted the adoption years earlier, calling the Masts’ actions well-intentioned to save the child. But later judges saw major problems:

The original adoption skipped normal rules and wasn’t valid under Virginia law for a child abroad.
A judge voided it in 2023, saying Afghanistan had the right to decide her fate as its citizen.
Appeals courts agreed, ruling the adoption should never have happened.

The Virginia Court of Appeals fully voided it in 2024. The case reached the Virginia Supreme Court in early 2025, but as of early 2026, no final ruling has come down.
The child, now about 6 years old, has stayed with the Mast family—growing up with four brothers, going to school, and living a normal American life. The Afghan couple, now in the U.S., have kept a bedroom ready for her with butterfly decorations. They haven’t seen her in over four years.

Government Mixed Messages and Ongoing Questions
The U.S. government has flip-flopped. Under Biden, officials argued the child should go back to the Afghan family, saying Mast misled people and hurt America’s reputation. But under Trump’s second term, the Justice Department withdrew that stance and now seems to support the Masts’ side.
The Marine Corps investigated Mast and found his actions “unbecoming” of an officer but didn’t punish him severely—he stayed on active duty.
This isn’t just about one family. It’s a painful reminder of the human cost of war, the confusion of evacuations, and how good intentions can clash with laws, cultures, and policies. Both sides love this little girl and believe they’re doing what’s best for her. But after years in court, her future is still uncertain, caught between two worlds and two families who each call her their daughter.

2 thoughts on “How a U.S. Marine Adopted an Afghan Baby Girl — Even Though the Government Said No”

Sydlou says:
February 8, 2026 at 11:28 am
Very nice…. Po .. How a U.S. Marine Adopted an Afghan Baby Girl — Even Though the Government Said No
Cristian Clariosa says:
February 9, 2026 at 9:52 am
Gusto po makita ang video