He added, “If it wasn’t for those people, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Before the announcement in September of a new travel ban, which rolled back some of the previous restrictions but still included Syrian refugees, a federal judge in Seattle blocked the executive order on Feb. 3 and allowed for families like Mr. Agha’s to enter the country. They left as soon as possible, arriving in New York City on Feb. 5.

Toward a Glittering Future

Immigration and refugee services at Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, helped the family acclimate to their new lives.

Mr. Agha was connected to the Catholic Guild for the Blind, where he is now enrolled in mobility and language courses. Having never received formal services for the blind, Mr. Agha is learning basics like cooking, grooming and doing laundry; he is also learning English and hopes to one day study psychology.

In September, to help with Mr. Agha’s studies, Catholic Charities used $383 from the Neediest Cases Fund to buy him an iPad. The organization also successfully applied for support through the state’s Commission for the Blind — which supplied Mr. Agha with an audio recorder, batteries and a battery charger — and for Supplemental Security Income.

Mr. Agha has settled on Staten Island with his parents and several of his siblings, paying $2,400 a month in rent. One brother works at CVS and is enrolled in college classes. Mr. Agha’s father drives for Uber. Mr. Agha travels by Access-a-Ride into Manhattan. He says that he can tell by smell which borough he is in.

“I had a dream, seven years ago, that I was living in New York,” he said. “I had an image of New York in my head, and it turned out to be just the one I had.”

Oftentimes Mr. Agha will ask his mobility instructor to walk with him down Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue, or he goes it alone to the Library for the Blind downtown.