(OC Register) Afghan refugees find generosity, chaos as they settle in Orange County—The Orange County Register

Dozens of families are living in hotels. Housing is scarce and case workers stretched thin. But success stories are adding up.

Originally posted on The Orange County Register

Nasema’s immense pride for her younger sister as a member of the famed Afghan Girls Robotic Team turned to fear last August.

That’s when an American contact told Nasema that the girls on the Robotic Team, and their relatives, could be in danger as U.S. troops evacuated Afghanistan and the Taliban retook control of the country. So Nasema, her husband, Firooz, and their three sons soon fled from their hometown of Herat and made their way to Kabul.

Two days later, Americans took the family as close as they could safely get to the Kabul Airport, where U.S. forces were rushing to airlift out vulnerable Afghans. The family walked the last two miles, then fought through a chaotic crowd of thousands to get inside the airport gates and, eventually, to a waiting plane.

After a week in Kuwait, and three months in the barracks of a military base in Wisconsin, the family has spent the past 69 days living in one-room hotels in Irvine, still waiting for a place to call home.

Nasema and her family are among roughly 400 Afghan refugees who’ve arrived in Orange County, and more than 76,000 who’ve come to the United States, over the past six months.

All once worked with American troops or had other ties that would put them at risk in a country now under Taliban rule. (Their relatives in Afghanistan remain vulnerable, which is why Nasema and others in this story are not being identified by their full names.)

Another 100-plus refugees are expected to arrive in Orange County in the next few weeks, as the State Department transfers the final 10,000 people still living in temporary mini-cities on three U.S. military bases.

The refugee wave, locally, has generated many examples of people stepping in to welcome the new arrivals. That includes businesses, like a TV station in Little Saigon that raised $80,000 for Afghan families from a Vietnamese audience that understands what it’s like to be a refugee. And it includes individuals like David and Darlene Gray of Seal Beach, who are sponsoring a family of three and planning a shower for the Afghan American baby they’ll soon welcome.

“God told us to do two things: Love Him and love others,” said Darlene Gray, 74. “We feel like this is a real opportunity to love others in His name.”

Such support is generating some early successes. A man who worked as a civil engineer in Afghanistan recently landed a local job in his field, making more than $170,000 a year. And a nail artist recently was promoted to a lead role at her salon, just two weeks after she landed the job.

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