In December of 2015, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted on and passed a motion that officially welcomed Syrian refugees into the county. This motion was a response to President Obama’s decision to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States, a small number in comparison to the hundreds of thousands in European countries and the millions in the Middle East. The motion, led by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sheila Kuehl, also approved sending a letter to President Obama requesting that the federal government increase their efforts to aid Syrian refugees.

In March of 2011, protests broke out across Syria after a group of teenagers were arrested and tortured for writing anti-government graffiti on a school wall in the city of Daara. As the death toll continued to rise, extremist organizations like the Islamic State took advantage of the chaos in Syria, spreading more violence across the northern and eastern parts of the country. Today, five years since the civil war began, 250,000 people have been killed and over 7 million have lost their homes as a result of the conflict.

Meanwhile, those who have managed to escape Syria have faced difficulties getting into Europe and United States as powerful nations have begun to close their borders.

For more information on the L.A. County motion, watch the full version of this documentary.