SAN ANTONO – A former paralympic champion in Afghanistan, Bilal Mirbat Zai and his pregnant wife Humaira, narrowly escaped the suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport on August 26 last year.
They finally arrived at that same airport the next day after taking a harrowing bus ride through the chaos and gunfire in the streets.
Through it all, Mirbat Zai said he worried about his grieving wife, whose mother had just died, and their unborn child.
He said he wondered, “What will happen to our baby?”
Yet one year later, he, his wife and their infant daughter, Mahsa, sit on a beautiful carpet in their Northwest Side apartment.
Like most proud new parents, the Mirbat Zai’s have high hopes for their daughter.
“She will be a great leader in the United States, especially for Afghans,” he said.
Mirbat Zai said someday he’ll show her the videos and photographs he took on his phone of those final days as their home country collapsed around them.
Having witnessed “the unbelievable,” he said will be “a painful but very great story for my baby.”
“She would love how we saved her,” Mirbat Zai said.
Mirbat Zai said he and his wife have had the support of resettlement agencies like Refugee Services of Texas, where he now works helping other Afghan refugees.
Julie Thornton, RST area director, said the agency opened a San Antonio office in response to the estimated 4,000 Afghan refugees who have resettled here since last fall.
Of those, she said, RST has helped about 200 of them since December 2021.
Thornton said those they serve have faced “a lack of housing, a lack of access to employment, and don’t speak the language when they arrive.”
In general, she said, they need all their basic needs met.
But, Thornton said, the goal is self-sufficiency.
Yet for Mirbat Zai and other Afghan asylum seekers, Thornton said their biggest concern is their work authorizations that will expire next year.
Without a green card and a pathway to citizenship, Thornton said their future is uncertain unless the U.S. Congress passes legislation like the Afghan Adjustment Act.
“There are acts in front of Congress right now that we’re trying to get passed and advocating for those things to get passed,” Thornton said.