He wanted her to come live with him and his young family in the U.S. But before she would agree, she asked for a promise — that he would one day also bring the granddaughters she had raised since they were babies.
Mabil, now 44, agreed, but it turned out that he could petition only for immediate family members. Though his mom joined him in Texas in 2020, his two nieces — who soon turn 18 and 19 — remain in Africa.
"That always killed me," said Mabil, whose own childhood was ripped apart by civil war in Sudan.
Now, as the U.S. government transforms the way refugees are being resettled, Mabil and his family have hope that the nieces may soon be able to join them in suburban Fort Worth. The Biden administration opened the application process this month that lets Americans who have formed groups to privately sponsor refugees request specific people they want to bring to the U.S.
Jacob Mabil pauses during an interview at his home about his two nieces Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Haslet, Texas. Mabil is one of Sudan's "Lost Boys," and is trying to get his two nieces from African refugee camps to the U.S. to live with him and his family.
When he was just 8, Mabil said he was forced to run for his life as soldiers came into his village in what is now South Sudan, setting it on fire as they killed people. He became part of the group of children know as the 'Lost Boys,' who spent years on their own and walked hundreds of miles to flee violence.
Mabil, who didn't even know his mother was alive until shortly after he arrived in the U.S. in his early 20s, said he wants his sister's daughters to have the same opportunities that he's had.
Refugee settlement program
Traditionally, resettlement agencies have placed refugees in communities, but the push to add private sponsorship as well has come as President Joe Biden works to restore a program that was decimated under former President Donald Trump. The launch at the start of this year of the State Department’s Welcome Corps program — which allows everyday Americans the chance to form their own groups to privately sponsor refugees — came after a similar endeavor that let U.S. citizens sponsor Afghans or Ukrainians.
"In many ways it is, I think, one of the most important things that the U.S. resettlement program has ever done," said Sasha Chanoff, founder and CEO of RefugePoint, a Boston-based nonprofit that helps refugees. "It will allow families who are in desperate need to reunite to do so."
With the U.S. hoping to bring in 125,000 refugees this fiscal year, the private sponsors through Welcome Corps expands the capacity of the existing system, spokeswoman Monna Kashfi said. She added that the opportunity to apply to sponsor a specific refugee has been greatly anticipated.
"We have heard all throughout the year from people who wanted to know ... when they could submit an application to sponsor someone that they know," she said.
Mabil, his wife and his mother have already joined two family friends to form their own sponsor group to start the process to bring over the two teens, who were placed in a boarding school when their grandmother left Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya for the U.S. One is set to graduate soon and the other has returned to the camp after graduating.
FILE - Adeng Ajang of South Sudan, talks about her two granddaughters still in Africa during an interview at her son's home Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Haslet, Texas.
"Extraordinary danger"
Chanoff said that unaccompanied girls are often "in extraordinary danger" at the refugee camp and regularly kidnapped and sold into marriage against their will.
Mabil’s wife, Akuot Leek, 33, who is also from South Sudan and spent her childhood traveling from place to place with her family as they fled violence, wants the young women, who are eager to continue their education in America, to have the same freedom that she had to choose what to do with their lives.
Leek and Mabil began dating after meeting at a wedding in the U.S. and both are college graduates who now work in finance.
Mabil was one of about 20,000 youths who joined an odyssey that took them first to Ethiopia, where they spent about three years before a war there forced them to flee again. They eventually made it to Kakuma, where Mabil spent almost a decade before coming to the U.S.
"They had survived bullets and bombs and wild animal attacks and things that you and I can’t imagine to get to Kakuma camp," said Chanoff, who met Mabil at the camp.
Leek and Mabil say that once his nieces are settled in Texas, they may work to bring over other family members.
Mabil's mother, Adeng Ajang, said living with her son and daughter-in-law and four grandchildren in their comfortable home has made her very happy. Now, the only stress she has in her life is worrying about her granddaughters.
"It was difficult to leave them," said Ajang as her daughter-in-law translated. "It was hard."
Ajang said she talks to her granddaughters on the phone often. "Sometimes we talk and then we will start to cry," she said.
For Mabil, he's excited and nervous to start the process. "This is my last chance," he said.