In this short documentary, we follow one Afghan refugee as he adjusts to a new life in Dallas.

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More than 4,400 Afghan refugees plan to resettle in Texas after the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover, according to the White House. The majority of evacuees are people who received Special Immigrant Visas for their ties to the U.S military. These individuals find support from Texans working with local organizations as they adjust to living in the U.S.

But after four years of budget cuts to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, some government-funded resettlement agencies struggle to find resources and staffing to support Afghan refugees. This video features “Amir,” a refugee who worked as an engineer with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He asked to go by a pseudonym out of fear that the Taliban would retaliate against his family. He worries about his brother in Afghanistan as he navigates his own challenges adjusting to life in Dallas.

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Ashley Miznazi is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and returned for a second semester as a multimedia fellow at The Texas Tribune until May 2022. She previously worked as a reporting intern...

Lauren Santucci is a multimedia fellow at the Texas Tribune. Santucci is a visual journalist with the goal of humanizing social issues through personal stories. She received her masters in photojournalism...

Todd Wiseman was the senior editor for video and multimedia at The Texas Tribune, where he worked from 2010 to 2023. Todd previously worked at the Austin School of Film and Synthetic Pictures and interned...