Janine GriffithsFor Kayla, life in Damascus was filled with simple joys—weekend visits to family, summer trips to the beach, and afternoons spent wandering through the mall with friends. Her father, a lover of nature, cultivated a farm with chickens and a garden bursting with flowers.
“The smell of Damascus actually just smells like jasmine,” Kayla (not her real name) recalls. “You have all four seasons, and it’s just really nice and green.”
That sense of normalcy shattered with the onset of the Syrian war. The country she had always known was suddenly unrecognisable.
“I can’t look at pictures of Syria now. I’ve repressed everything and I don’t want to resurface any feelings,” Kayla says. “It’s like—how can this happen? I lived there. I went to school there. Everything I’ve ever known is there. Now I cannot watch the news because I get flashbacks of when I would watch it about Syria.”
The Syrian war transformed Kayla’s world, forcing her family to seek refuge in the UAE. Later, she arrived in the UK on a student visa, but the expiration of her residency permits and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic left her in a precarious situation. She was unable to renew her residency elsewhere and was facing the terrifying prospect of deportation to Syria, a country still under dictatorship. Seeking asylum became her only option.
She describes herself as “lucky” that her case was processed swiftly. But working with the Harehills-based charity Pafras, she saw firsthand the struggles many asylum seekers face—years spent in limbo, barred from working, forced to rely on minimal financial support, and often housed in unsafe, inadequate accommodation.
“You’re not meant to feel like a human,” she says. “It’s a hostile environment. It really, really is.”
Asylum seekers in the UK are often placed in poor-quality hotels, sometimes for years. “A big complaint of the right is like, ‘Oh, they’re pouring too much money on those refugees and asylum seekers.’ No, they’re not. They’re given £40 a week and they’re made to live in horrible, horrible environments and hotels.”
Even for those who try to secure independent housing, the challenges are immense. Because many landlords refuse to rent to asylum seekers, some are forced to find accommodation where immigration checks won’t be carried out—an arrangement that often leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.
“If you have some money saved up and you are forced to look for a landlord that will not go through an agent. Because if they do, they’re going to do an immigration check. But then that is very dangerous, because then the landlords are not obligated to fix anything that breaks down in the house, which is stupid. They’re not obligated to even make sure you’re safe.”
Kayla is deeply frustrated by public misconceptions surrounding refugees.
“You had a second world war. Your grandparents had to deal with this. Where’s the compassion?” she asks. “People migrate. That’s life. No civilization has stayed forever.”
She is particularly critical of media narratives that dehumanise asylum seekers.
“They’re not seeing them as people, period,” she says. “It’s fear-based thinking. This time, the enemy is the refugees and asylum seekers. Next time, it’ll be someone else. It’s just a political ploy. It’s a combination of ignorance and scapegoating, you know? The age-old tactic of divide and rule, unfortunately, seems to work on most people.”
Although her light skin spares her the worst of the racism other immigrants face, Kayla still notices a shift in how people treat her once they learn she is Syrian.
“I’m quite privileged in the fact that I’m, white passing. And I speak the language so I do not get so much discrimination. You know, thank God nothing happened to me. People usually think I’m American, until they ask, ‘Where are you from?.’ When I say Syria, suddenly they get standoffish.“ she says.
Her best friend, who is Iranian, experienced a similar reaction on the London Underground: after helping a lost American couple, she told them her nationality. Their response? “Oh, you shouldn’t have told us that. Next time say you’re Persian.”
Reflecting on the UK’s treatment of asylum seekers, Kayla is clear on what needs to change.
“Let asylum seekers work. There’s a need for unskilled labour. It would help the UK economy. Who is it harming?” she asks.
Kayla also stresses the importance of legal aid and accessible asylum processes.
She believes the system is designed to set asylum seekers up for failure—trapping them in bureaucratic limbo while demanding they follow rules that make legal entry nearly impossible.
“A big argument of some on the right is ‘I don’t even mind if they come as long as they come legally.’ But they’re not able to come legally! The processes are horrid.”
For Kayla, real change starts with individuals. While policies and politics shape the asylum system, she believes ordinary people have the power to make a difference through simple acts of empathy. She sees everyday kindness as a crucial way to counter hostility towards refugees.
“If someone is speaking in broken English, take the time to understand them,” she says. “Learn about asylum seekers throughout history. You might find your ancestors had to do the same thing.”
Indeed, with the world being as unstable as it is, the truth is that stability isn’t a guarantee for anyone, and today’s citizen could easily become tomorrow’s asylum seeker, regardless of the country you are from.
This is a point Kayla knows only too well: “I think what’s quite striking about that is that if you think about it, it could be any one of us. With the world we live in now where certain leaders are coming to power, I don’t think security is guaranteed for anyone.”
Now pursuing a PhD in biomechanical engineering, Kayla hopes to become a professor. In her spare time, she trains for a 20K run, paints, climbs, and practices yoga. While she has adjusted to life in the UK, some things still baffle her—like the drinking culture.
“It can feel quite intimidating,” she says. “And people don’t eat enough vegetables.”
Though she has found stability, the emotional toll of displacement lingers.
“If I could, I wouldn’t be a refugee. I would be in my country,” she says. “But that’s not an option.”
