By: Hosna Kachooee
What would you do if you were told to pack everything up and leave the country in the next few weeks? How would you rebuild your life when almost every country denies you entry? That is the reality for millions of refugees around the world.
Like millions of Syrian refugees, Ahmad Alhasan and his family left Syria for a chance to have a safer future, but that proves to be tricky with the rocky road that is the refugee life. With immigration laws constantly changing, families are deprived of a stable life. One day they’re together in their home, and the next day they’re ordered to leave the country without a say in the matter. This uncertainty leads to refugees never having a place to call their home and prevents them from planning their future.
Ahmad talks of his time in Saudi Arabia, where he and his family immigrated to prior to when tensions started to rise in Syria. “There was a period where things were getting unsafe, but they weren’t really declaring it [as] civil war and everyone was in denial,” he says. During that time, however, Ahmad and his family would still visit Syria and spend time with their relatives each summer, allowing them to hold a small connection to their home country. But in a matter of weeks all of that changed; the war began and the world suddenly turned its back on Syrian refugees.
“When the war started, there was a series of deportations,” recalls Ahmad. “[They] decided to randomly tell my family or my dad to leave the country, which apparently they did to a lot of foreigners at the time, a lot of Syrians specifically.” It was unclear why these immigrants were suddenly denied the right to stay in their new homes, especially at a time where they most needed it. “There’s no reason; you didn’t violate anything, but you need to leave within a month or so.” With limited options for their next location, they moved to Türkiye—which hosts millions of refugees from all over the world—but that too did not provide the luxury of a peaceful life.
For refugees living outside Syria, their world is clouded with countless political agendas and oftentimes they become scapegoats for politicians. “When we moved to Türkiye, we were actually moving as normal citizens, immigrants, or whatever it was,” says Ahmad. “And then suddenly, through these bureaucratic procedures, we were given an ID. Later on, I learned that this was a temporary protection—code word for refugees—but we weren’t called that.”
Even though Ahmad and his family weren’t in Syria, their whole life changed after the war. “The effects of it on Saudi Arabia and Türkiye changed our whole lives by [having to constantly] relocate and get a different status,” he says. It wasn’t just the regulations that were pressuring Ahmad and his family, but the Turkish people weren’t quite accepting of the growing refugee population, leading to an increase of hate crimes, abuse, discrimination, and so much more. To Ahmad, it felt as though people could not accept the fact that they spoke different languages and he felt the presence of something else. With different political campaigns, there was a certain profiling that emerged against people of color, particularly Syrians. One in particular, was the recent presidential campaign for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu that promised to make the country better by ‘kicking out all Syrians’.
According to Ahmad, “Our mobility was very, very controlled. Even though I was a student in Ankara (Türkiye’s capital), I had to get a permit every time I went or came back” to Istanbul, where his family was. “If you were caught in a different state, you might get deported or get fined up to 6,000 Liras (around $186).” Things escalated when “they would catch you in the street and if you forgot your ID or don’t have it, [they would say that] you’re an illegal immigrant so we have to deport you.” If you were caught by the authorities, your fate would be sealed in Tuzla Deportation Center—a place that holds horrifying stories of how captives are treated before being deported.
“They would take them to Tuzla, and they would keep them there for days, weeks, months, and would abuse them, deprive them of water, food, and everything,” Ahmad says. “Until they [made you] sign a paper that says ‘I want to voluntarily go back to Syria’. [The authorities would] even take videos of them to prove that they wanted to leave.” These stories would ring fear in the immigrant and refugee communities, leading to families becoming extra careful living in their own neighborhoods, places where they had spent all their childhood. Ahmad says, “Try not to go out at night or too early in the morning. Don’t go to crowded places. This was ridiculous because we were refugees that had jobs, education [obligations], and other things to do throughout the day, so it was unavoidable.” Legal, immigrant, refugee, and other titles did not matter in these times and their lives depended on the officers that were trying to catch them. In addition, Syrians started to feel even more marginalized when the mass media targeted them, but confused when the president would constantly reassure them of their safety.
He continues, “It was concurrent with the people’s changing attitudes where people started pinning all of their problems on refugees. [Such as] we’re getting more crimes because of refugees, the economy is bad because of refugees, the politics is bad because of refugees.” With all fingers pointed towards Syrians, a normal life seemed to be fading out of the picture. With Syrian students, the futures of the nation, they were barred from opportunities and dealt with racism from students and faculty. Ahmad shared a story about one of his friends, who had the goal to qualify for an ERASMUS scholarship¹. Like all students, she studied for the tests and dedicated time for her essays, but her problem wasn’t the scores.
“The teacher told her ‘I’m failing you because I don’t want you to take another Turkish student’s place. They deserve it, you don’t,’ Ahmad recounts. “She redid the exam and she told her ‘you can redo it as many times as you want, I’m still failing you.’” It seemed as though the more the media portrayed Syrians as the enemy, the more confident people were to show racism. This leads to Syrians wanting to leave and migrate to yet another host country, but even that proved to be difficult.
When Ahmad and his family wanted to leave, they were faced with stubborn officers who would not let them through. “We got the visa, we had everything ready and had the flight booked,” he says. “We just needed to go to the airport and leave. But a couple months before, they introduced this new law. If you’re a refugee, you have to go to the immigration office and submit an application for leaving the country.” In these applications refugees had to give all information about their destination: who’s going to take you there?How are you going there?What’s your flight number?What’s your bus number? These are just a few examples of the questions they had to answer.
Ahmad says, “I saw so many people going to France, going to Holland, to the U.S. with scholarships and job offers and they were all telling me that doing this is harder than getting the visa (for reference, that takes at least a year). I don’t know why they’re making it so hard to leave when they don’t want us. We get it, but let us leave the country, you know?”
Regardless of all the obstacles, Ahmad—who considered himself as one of the lucky ones—was able to study at one of the best universities in Türkiye and continued living for himself in a land that didn’t accept him. “Many other Syrians are still stuck in Türkiye, livid in horrid conditions in refugee camps with little to no aid, at the risk of facing discrimination and hate crimes every day,” he says. Ahmad hopes to see a better life for those Syrians who cannot get the aid they need. He recently immigrated to Germany with his family, where there is a possibility for a brighter future. Ahmad is just one example of the countless Syrians who were mistreated and marginalized, simply because of their ethnicity.
- Erasmus Mundus is a European program that supports education and training in Europe. Getting the scholarship is highly competitive and only 100 students get accepted from all over the world. Thousands of students apply but only 3-5% get accepted.