A SYRIAN refugee family living in Paisley is pleading with the Home Office to stop blocking them from reuniting with their dying son.
"They have no idea how we are surviving, how we're suffering,” his mother, Lamis, told The National.
Lamis, now 46, and her husband Ali were displaced from Syria by the civil war in 2016. They settled in Scotland with their youngest son under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS).
They applied for a family reunion visa in 2024 for their older son, now 30-year-old Mohamad – also displaced from Syria and now living as a refugee in Jordan – who has blood cancer, as well as his wife and three young children.
While their case was initially rejected by the Home Office, a First Tier Tribunal judge allowed it in July 2025 under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the “right to respect for private and family life, home, and correspondence”.
But the Home Office appealed later that month – arguing that the judge made a “material error of law”, according to documents seen by The National.
Now, the family is petrified that their son might die before this appeal is even heard.
The Scottish Greens have hit out at the Home Office for subjecting the family to "such inhumanity and cruelty", branding the move "sickening".
One of the arguments made by the UK Government department was on “public interest” grounds, including that terminally ill Mohamad and his family don’t speak English which "represents a burden on the UK taxpayer”.
They also argued that there was insufficient evidence that the right to family life can’t be satisfied by his parents visiting him in Jordan.
The Paisley couple (below with Mohamad and his wife) told The National that while they did manage to visit their son in Jordan a few years ago before his cancer diagnosis by taking out a pricey bank loan, they are unable to do so now given any spare money they have is sent to pay for medical expenses.
“The medical reports that I've provided were saying his health, or his condition, has deteriorated every single day. And also they give him a life expectancy of only three months,” Lamis said. “That was almost two months ago.”
She went on: “Every time I speak to him, he's in bed. He cannot open his eyes. He can hear me talking to him but he cannot talk to me.”
Lamis then broke down in tears.
“They don't know how we're living every single day. They don't know how we're being affected by their decision. They have no idea how we're living daily.”
The whole ordeal has been a significant source of “suffering”, her husband Ali added.
“[Lamis] had to be in the hospital because she was suicidal at some points,” he said.
“We don't leave the house, we don't go out at all. Both of us, we’re not well. With her mental health – her depression – and her anxiety level is really high. I have to take care of her. I have to be responsible to give her medication daily.”
Ali is in a wheelchair due to an injury he sustained in 2016 by a bomb during the Syrian civil war, which he said makes the situation even harder.
“The Home Office doesn't take this on board. They have no idea how we are surviving, how we're suffering,” he said.
Uslam Aslam, a senior associate at Mukhtar & Co in Glasgow who is representing the refugee couple, said this is an “ongoing appeal [which] limits what I can discuss on the case”.
He added, however, that whilst the Home Office is fully entitled to appeal, it must be “heartbreaking” for the mother and father.
“We had asked for this to be expedited given the tragic circumstances, however by the time this case is heard by the higher court known as the Upper Tribunal, we fear the worst may happen,” Aslam said.
It comes after then-home secretary Yvette Cooper announced earlier this month that the UK Government will suspend all new applications under the existing dedicated refugee family reunion route – which allows people to bring their partners and children to the country once they are granted refugee status.
The move sparked wide condemnation, including the CEO of Positive Action in Housing, Robina Qureshi, saying: “To cut dead the only lifeline open to refugees desperately trying to submit family reunion applications is unbelievably cruel.”
It’s a ramping up of rhetoric as well as action against immigration and refugee policy by the Labour Party as they attempt to face off the electoral threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman called the whole ordeal "sickening".
"It is not an error that has caused this, it is the system itself which is based on punishing, demonising and humiliating refugees rather than supporting them," she said.
"The Home Office is institutionally racist and beyond reform and there are devastating human consequences to the decisions that they make.
“My heart and my solidarity are with Lamis, Ali and their family. This decision will only pile more pain on them at a very difficult time.”
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
