Trump Travel Ban Stops Mom From Saying Goodbye To Her Terminally Ill Toddler
The Trump travel ban barring migration from some traditionally Muslim countries is preventing a Yemeni mother from saying goodbye to her terminally ill two year old — who is on life support in an Oakland, California, hospital. The child, Abdullah Hassan, was born in Yemen with a rare brain disease. He was brought by his father, a U.S. citizen, to his home of Stockton, California, in the hope of life-saving treatment — but the child’s case was deemed terminal.
The San Fransisco Chronicle says that Hassan can no longer breathe on his own. The family is ready to take him off of life support, but the child’s mother, Shaima Swileh, cannot get permission to travel to Oakland to hold Hassan’s hand, and to say goodbye to her toddler.
Abdullah Hassan has been in the hospital — UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland — for five months, and continues to decline. Shaima Swileh is currently in Cairo, Egypt, but thus far, the U.S. State Department has ignored all efforts to get her a waiver to see her child one last time.
The child’s father, Ali Hassan, is begging for the chance for his wife to say goodbye to their son.
“All she wishes is to hold his hand for the last time. f I could take him off the ventilator and to the airplane, I would take him to her. I would let her see him. But he won’t make it.”
Trump travel ban keeping mother from dying 2-year-old son in California, family says https://t.co/s8ZtaYmf7f pic.twitter.com/5zlSs9iayn
— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 17, 2018
Hassan says that he has only gotten an automated response from the State Department, and has yet to speak to an actual person about the status of his wife’s visa. Ali Hassan’s father — Fawzi Hassan, 41 — is hoping that something will change and the visa will come through.
“It’s really urgent. She’s crying every day, ‘Please help me get to my son.’ We need her to see her son one last time. To hold him for at least a minute. She’s not going to see him forever. If he dies and we bury him without his mom seeing him, that will be a disaster.”
Ali Hassan says he tried to wait in Cairo until his wife’s visa waiver was approved, but their son just kept getting sicker, and he knew that returning to California was his only chance. That was five months ago, and there has been no news on Swileh’s visa denial “pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 9645,” the so-called Trump travel ban.
The family hopes to hold a press conference today to raise awareness of this tragic and timely matter.
