Bilal, himself a recent arrival from Afghanistan, volunteers at the Center for Refugee Services to help other new arrivals. He organizes care packages filled with blankets, pillows and household items and serves as an interpreter for the men who crowd into the center’s courtyard.
Afghan refugees cross Wurzbach Road after each received a bag filled with blankets, pillows and household items from the Center for Refugee Services.
Aimal Amin, who was able to flee Afghanistan with his family after Kabul fell, flips his son Rihanullah, 5, in their San Antonio apartment while his daughter, Zala, 7, watches and laughs.
Zala, 7 tries to help her older brother, Romal, with his video game as their youngest brother, Nazifullah, rides a rocking horse in their living room. The family escaped Afghanistan and are building new lives in San Antonio.
Zala, 7, leans on an armchair while her brother, Romal, 9, plays a video game. Their youngest brother, Nazifullah, 3, rides a rocking horse in the living room of their San Antonio apartment. The family escaped Afghanistan and are building new lives.
Zala, 7, who loves climbing on the family couch, watches as her dad, Aimal Amin, writes out the names of her siblings on a piece of paper. The family recently arrived in San Antonio after fleeing Afghanistan.
Ms. Amin lays out lunch for her family. She and her husband, Aimal Amin, recently arrived in San Antonio with their children after fleeing Afghanistan.
Aimal Amin watches American cartoons with his children during their holiday break from school, hoping it will help them learn English faster as they settle into their new lives in San Antonio. The family fled Afghanistan last summer.
Zala, 7, Nazifullah, 3, and Romal, 9, snack on Cheerios while watching American cartoons and playing video games in their San Antonio apartment. The family fled Afghanistan last summer.
Bilal, himself a recent arrival from Afghanistan, answers text messages while running back and forth from the front room of the Center for Refugee Services to the courtyard to distribute donated items to Afghan refugees.
Afghan refugees carry mattresses into the apartment they share. The mattresses were donated by Soldiers Angels, a nonprofit that has been helping the new arrivals.
Afghan refugees carry mattresses into the apartment they share. The mattresses were donated by Soldiers Angels, a nonprofit that has been helping the new arrivals.
Afghan refugees carry mattresses into the apartment they share. The mattresses were donated by Soldiers Angels, a nonprofit that has been helping the new arrivals.
Afghan refugees carry mattresses into the apartment they share. The mattresses were donated by Soldiers Angels, a nonprofit that has been helping the new arrivals.
Afghan refugees carry mattresses into the apartment they share. The mattresses were donated by Soldiers Angels, a nonprofit that has been helping the new arrivals.
Zala, 7, rocks her youngest brother, Nazifullah, 3, on a rocking horse that sits in the living room of their San Antonio apartment. The family fled Afghanistan last summer.
The morning was still young, five shopping days before Christmas, and Bilal, a recently arrived refugee from Afghanistan, was busy packaging gifts.
They weren’t traditional presents to be sealed in festive paper and ribbons. Bilal was sorting through blankets, towels and hygiene products, stuffing them in plastic trash bags at the Center for Refugee Services office on the Northwest Side.
He ran out of time and had to dash off to San Antonio International Airport to greet a man, his wife and five children. They, too, were from Afghanistan, full of worries and questions. One big issue: Would they be able to communicate?
“I talked with him in my language, Pashto. He just hugged me,” Bilal said afterward.
“He said, ‘In the airplane and the flight I was thinking, what should I do in the airport, and who will help me? And I tell him, ‘We’re all here, and I’m translating for you and the other people are caseworkers.’ So he was very happy, the kids were very, very happy because after a long time they came out from camps. All of them, I saw smiles on their faces.”
Since the fall of Kabul in August, the Center for Refugee Services has helped more than 1,300 Afghans start new lives in San Antonio, said its director, Margaret Costantino. As of mid-December, about 950 others had arrived with help from Catholic Charities and RAICES, and several dozen probably have come without any agency’s help, said Tino Gallegos, the city’s immigration liaison.
More will follow, at a pace that has reached up to 50 a day, said Costantino, whose organization is being helped by a thrown-together network of volunteer groups trying to gather basic supplies and furnishings for the new arrivals.
In all, the U.S. will absorb 74,000 Afghans, said Army Lt. Col. Christian Mitchell, a Pentagon spokesman. Some have spent months at U.S. military bases since the frantic evacuation of Kabul. Nearly 48,000 already have arrived in their new communities across the nation as of Tuesday, he said.
Bilal, himself a recent arrival from Afghanistan, volunteers at the Center for Refugee Services to help other new arrivals. He organizes care packages filled with blankets, pillows and household items and serves as an interpreter for the men who crowd into the center’s courtyard.
When they get off a plane at the airport, the refugees have almost nothing and need a bit of everything — food, clothing, furniture, tableware, pots, pans and a tea kettle. And, of course, a place to live, which can be difficult for just about anyone moving to San Antonio, given the city’s tight housing market.
Recently arrived Afghans take newer families into their already crowded residences until the newcomers can find apartments. It’s not uncommon for one Afghan family to have another living with them.
The Center for Refugee Services has plenty of toys but needs cash donations. Visit www.sarefugees,org or call (210) 949-0062.
The Seguin ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asks donors to follow the Seguin Stable Project Facebook group and to purchase items from its registry at Amazon or Ikea Gift Cards. Tim Bird can be reached by email at seguinwardbishop@gmail.com
The families can be large. Mahtabudin Safi, an Afghan air force lieutenant colonel, came here with his wife and eight children, who range from 2 to 16 years old. They live in a three-bedroom apartment with bunk beds for the little kids.
The refugees’ numbers accelerated as Christmas approached, and many of the volunteers helping people caught in the diaspora of a lost war said the experience came as a spiritual reminder.
“Regardless of your faith tradition, people the world over recognize that Jesus was one of the most famous refugees in human history,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “And one of the missions during the holiday season is to express our charity to neighbors in need because that need is present throughout the year but it’s especially difficult during this time of year.”
The compassion comes from young and old — from people such as Costantino, 73, to Jordan Johnson and Chloe Tobler, both 16, who work in the Seguin Stable Project, a Mormon youth program formed to help the Afghans.
“They’ve got this whole outline of a modern-day nativity, and part of the outline was this stable, and it was a refugee family getting a furnished apartment,” Tobler said, explaining the logo for an effort that has filled two dozen apartments with supplies and bedding.
Other help comes from Soldiers Angels, a group that started two decades ago to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and last week was delivering mattresses to the refugees. Veterans Rich Scott and Pat Jopling on Tuesday gave beds to seven single Afghans at an apartment complex on the Northwest Side.
“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to help folks, not just because of the camaraderie that I feel … as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan or as a person, but just as a human being,” said Scott, 51, of San Antonio. “It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the right time of the year to do it.”
On ExpressNews.com: As U.S. pullout looms, Afghans who settled in San Antonio try to save loved ones
The work began last summer as the Afghan government collapsed amid the U.S. pullout after 20 years of war. The Center for Refugee Services fielded desperate inquiries from many of the 600 Afghans who had settled here since 2015, and it geared up fundraising and volunteers to help what it thought would be 100 new arrivals by September.
The trickle of refugees has since turned into a flood.
Aimal Amin watches American cartoons with his children during their holiday break from school, hoping it will help them learn English faster as they settle into their new lives in San Antonio. The family fled Afghanistan last summer.
They made their escapes by air.
It was mid-August when Aimal Amin, a chief master sergeant, the highest noncommissioned officer rank in the Afghan air force, realized that his base had emptied as the Taliban began to enter Kabul. He was a C-130 mechanic who had trained at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls and later at Little Rock, Ark.
“I told my boss, ‘Let’s get out of here before we get captured alive by the enemy.’ He said, ‘You go. I will stay here.’”
Amin’s boss had the right idea. The base was at the international airport, and when Amin tried to make his way back a couple of days later, his way was blocked by thousands of people desperate to leave.
The next day, Amin’s wing chief called and asked for his information. The Americans were helping with the paperwork to get him out. Amin said his family had to come with him — “we will go together or we will die together.” They made it out, flying to Qatar.
Bilal asked to be identified only by his first name, concerned that the Taliban, his old country’s new rulers, will take revenge on relatives he left behind — a common concern among Afghans here. Some carry photos of the executed, sent to their social media and email accounts.
“I was working with an organization that helped girls in sports,” supported by the U.S. Embassy, Bilal said.
He observed the bedlam at the airport and kept trying to get himself and his wife on a flight out. Their chance came Aug. 28, days before the airport closed.
Meanwhile, Safi, the lieutenant colonel, was stuck on the base, sheltered by Americans who controlled most of the airport, wondering if he would ever see his family again. He was a UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, trained at Fort Rucker, Ala., who previously flew Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters.
Amin and Safi had learned English at the Defense Language Institute at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
“The Taliban started looking for our families and us right away because we were known over there,” said Safi, 40, adding it was hard to keep a pilot’s identity secret. “They were tracking us all the time even before they came to Kabul.
“That’s why I had to move my family from my house. My brother and my cousin helped me with that. I called them immediately to get my kids and my wife and take them to a secure place because the Taliban came to my house.”
On his ninth day at the airport, Safi’s family showed up after dark.
“I was in hell. Those nine days were not easy for me,” he said. “One minute was like one year.”
Ms. Amin rocks her nephew, Nuhzadullah and her son, Nazifullah, in an armchair after the family ate lunch together. She and her husband, Aimal Amin, recently arrived in San Antonio with their children after fleeing Afghanistan.
One of the big challenges for the immigrants is the slow pace of getting work permits and Social Security cards. It takes two to three months for the permits to be completed and sent to the resettlement agencies.
Employers need both before they can hire a refugee, though “the jobs are out there,” Costantino said. It has forced the Center for Refugee Services to start a food pantry.
Afghans also can’t get Medicaid without the cards. University Health is providing free medical care for newly arrived Afghans for six months as a stopgap measure.
Medicaid will retroactively cover University’s bills once the Afghans qualify for federal health care.
“It’s important because, No. 1, people can’t wait for medical care and a large percentage of these newly arriving Afghans are pregnant women,” Costantino said. “So if they’re ready to deliver a baby and they haven’t had any prenatal care, we need to get them into the medical system as quickly as possible. So that’s good news.”
The refugees also have had amputations, blast injuries and bullet wounds to a degree rarely seen among civilians in the U.S. and other Western countries. Costantino called her clients “a highly traumatized group of people that are coming here with all sorts of pre-existing and ongoing medical problems.”
The center’s resources were holding as Christmas neared, but she said no one knew how many more months the surge of new arrivals will last. The center is handling a lot of emergency donations — things such as pillows, blankets, towels and hygiene supplies — and it spends about $6,000 every two weeks on gift cards for food, a critical resource for the Afghans.
“We can keep doing that awhile longer,” Costantino said. “A lot of the gift cards initially were donations from some of the partners. … And that’s been a tremendous help, because I’ve calculated we’ve had $100,000 worth of items go out the door, including gift cards for food, and we’ve paid about $25,000 of that out of our donations.”
Afghan refugees carry mattresses into the apartment they share. The mattresses were donated by Soldiers Angels, a nonprofit that has been helping the new arrivals.
Bishop Tim Bird of the Seguin ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints eyed a group of young people and adults as they moved household items into a weary-looking apartment complex on the East Side.
“It looks chaotic, but everyone’s pretty much on task on what they need to get and where it needs to go,” Bird said.
Several pickups, a couple pulling trailers, had rolled up a little after 2 p.m., along with 30 or 40 church members, including a toddler who struggled to carry a bag. They swarmed the parking lot and began moving items into an apartment, home to a family of 10.
It was the day before Christmas Eve.
A rug was unrolled in an otherwise empty living room. A bunk bed was left in an adjacent room and a double bed in another room. There were no sheets or covers, but those would soon arrive. The volunteers stocked 13 other apartments — more than they had planned for.
“A lot of people we find aren’t on the list, and we connect them to the resources that they need to get down the road,” Bird said.
Even before Thursday, the church had furnished a dozen other apartments. The project started small but grew from the sheer scale of the need. Afghans who arrive in San Antonio often have only the clothes they’ve worn since leaving camp.
The youth group borrowed an idea the church has used nationally, building a “giving machine” to attract donors for 72 household items. People can take a card from the machine, a big red box that sits in a high-traffic area in Seguin, and list an item to buy or donate.
Bird’s church has registries at Amazon and Ikea, where items on the list can be purchased for delivery to his home. Locally, church members are picking up mattresses, beds, bed frames, couches, kitchen tables and rugs. Their goal is to outfit 100 apartments.
“I think this whole project’s got us in the Christmas spirit, if you will, and it’s been full of outpouring of emotion and love, and just a desire to help people in need,” Bird said.
“Everyone that’s involved just feels connected to it and has a desire to help.”
Sig Christenson covers the military and been with the Express-News since 1997. He embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division during the 2003 Iraq invasion, and reported from Baghdad and Afghanistan seven times since. A University of Houston graduate, he covered the Branch Davidian siege, 2003 space shuttle breakup, 2009 Fort Hood shooting and its subsequent legal proceedings, as well as hurricanes, tropical storms and floods since 1986, including Rita, Katrina and Maria. He's won awards from Hearst Newspapers and the Associated Press, was named "Reporter of the Year" by his peers in 2004 and is a co-founder, former president and former board member of Military Reporters & Editors, established in 2002.