Two Questions About the Film (SPOILERS)

1. Yes Tahir's death was an obvious allusion to the sad fact that for those who can pay America has some of the best healthcare in the world, but the system fails so many who are underprivileged, and there are many preventable deaths from treatable ailments every year. Asthma is a good example of one of those as the deaths from asthma are much higher for Americans of color such as Tahir due largely to socio-economic differences. Tahir's case in particular was written showing that he responded well to the proper treatment, while in a place out of the elements and on his medication he did in fact get better. Life on the streets without continued access to healthcare is what killed him.

As far as having sympathy for him, well obviously that's something that will be different for everyone. I think that his backstory was one of the weakest elements of the film.
It A) felt too grabbed from the headlines, especially in conjunction with Hannah's husband dying at war in was it Iraq or Afghanistan? At any rate killed by different Islamic terrorist. Which also is a little from the headlines.

B) It is not well explained at all and we are left to wonder what exactly the circumstances were, I went to the film twice at TIFF and am still unclear as to how he went from loving family man, to his family killed and him a member of Boko Haram, or how he subsequently was able to end up in the US. Frankly his connection to Boko Haram felt like a convenient trigger to get Hannah to lose it and attack him and then shoot up right as her withdrawals from heroin seemed to be getting a little better. The only explanation I was able to work out about him that made any sense with the kind of good character and person he was shown to be in the rest of the film, was that his family was killed (and obviously he was in a fragile mental state at that point and they used that and threat of killing him to to force him to join. That was in no way made explicitly clear, but I felt like it was alluded to during his rushed explanation of it, and is something I've certainly read about happening in those situations rebel fighters come into towns, rape and kill the women and kids and then keep the men who are physically strong and emotionally damaged enough to be pliable to join.

As far as were we supposed to have sympathy for him, I'd imagine so, his character was shown to have many admirable traits throughout the film, and his stint with Boko Haram seemed completely incongruent with who his character was shown to be. (And to me felt a bit like a writing error that one line of exposition could for some audience members negate an entire screenplay worth of character building through actions). I personally did feel some sympathy for him, but I also felt like his death was not the saddest possible outcome, he had a lot of pain and hurt inside and ultimately wanted something this world couldn't give him, to be back with his family.

2) Yes the security guard died, it might have been easy to miss, but there was a poster in the background of the Shelter Hannah later goes to where Tahir's picture is on a police bulletin wanted in connection to a homicide.
Your second question makes me super bummed you were not called on during the Q&A as I cannot even begin to imagine Paul or Jennifer or the rest of the audiences reaction to someone who couldn't feel any sympathy at all for a character shown to despite their past have some good traits in the present day, yet felt sympathy toward the rapist security guard, but I am sure it would have been far more entertaining than any of the answers to questions that did get asked.

And I sense that anyone who felt sympathy for the security guard would object to my calling him a rapist, but he was. Yes she agreed to do it, but under duress and coercion, there is not a lot of practical difference between threatening physical violence to force someone to have sex with you, and finding someone already in a situation of facing physical harm (homeless people do in fact die during those kinds of blizzards and temperature drops) he found a woman who was at risk of death had she gone back out in the cold (and the film shows that she did in fact try to go back out and brave the storm and get to Brooklyn where the shelter had space, and then jump cut to her obviously not having been able to make it) That is rape. To force someone to choose between possible death and having sex with you means you are raping them.
Plus, lonely? He had a family at home, if that made him lonely go get a divorce and find a better family, don't rape homeless women by taking advantage of their situation.
No wonder sexual assault is so hard to stamp out, apparently being lonely is a good enough excuse. Plus when he tells her his daughter's name right after, who he had when they first met he told Hannah that she reminded him of her as they were the same age or something. Could the dude get any creepier? I was hoping Hannah would up and kill him at some point and was a little disappointed when his death ended up being more of an accident due to Tahir trying to come in and save her.

He was superbly well acted though. Props to that probably perfectly nice guy who was able to make him one of the most disgusting characters I've seen.

But seriously, to anyone reading this, if you ever find yourself in a situation of power over someone else as that security guard did, that is not a good time to suggest sex. Dire circumstances where the person does not have the freedom to say no, or has to risk something even worse than unwanted sex doesn't count as consent.