After fleeing Kabul, Afghan lawyers seek new life — and legal careers — in California
LOS ANGELES — Masooda Qazi held her 8-year-old son's hand tightly as she frantically tried to convey to a group of Dutch soldiers that she was an employee of the U.S. Embassy and was promised transport out of Kabul as it fell to the Taliban last year.
The crowd around Qazi was full of people similarly desperate to escape, and it was growing agitated. People pushed forward outside a security gate near the airport, erasing any space to move. Her son Habib began to panic.
"I can't breathe anymore," he said to his father, Hamid ul Rahman Qazi, who had been holding the couple's younger son — Hasib, 4 — above the crowd on his shoulders for hours.
"We need to go back," Hamid told his wife.
"No. Stay," she said. "We will get success."
More than a year later, the young family has resettled in the U.S. after escaping Afghanistan on a Dutch military plane, then waiting in a Dutch refugee camp for 10 months before finally receiving special U.S. immigrant visas.
They arrived in San Diego in June, Masooda had a baby girl in July, and they moved into their own apartment in August with the help of a refugee assistance program.
After so much turmoil and trauma, the young couple — who were successful lawyers in Afghanistan — said they finally feel safe.
But their quest for success isn't over.
With help from others
