Yemeni mom blocked by Trump travel ban now in US to see dying son

by Justin Wise - 12/20/18 8:39 AM ET

The Yemeni mother who was blocked from visiting the U.S. by President Trump’s travel ban arrived in San Francisco late Wednesday to see her dying 2-year old son.

“This is a difficult time for our family but we are blessed to be together,” Shaima Swileh’s husband, Ali Hassan, told The Associated Press. “I ask you to respect our privacy as we go to be with our son again.”

{mosads}”The Muslim ban has hurt Yemen-American families and needs to end,” he added, according to CNN.

Video footage shows Swileh wearing dark glasses and a headscarf as she walked through the airport. The AP reported that she and Hassan were later driven to University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland to see their son, Abdullah.

Swileh’s arrival came only days after the U.S. State Department granted her a waiver to travel to the U.S to see her son, who is suffering from a form of hypomyelination.

The waiver was granted after a lawsuit was filed by lawyers with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), according to the AP.

Trump’s travel ban limits travel into the U.S. by people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

Hassan, a U.S. citizen who lives in Stockton, Calif., told The San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week that the family had planned to move his son and wife to the U.S. But as his son’s condition worsened, the urgency to move him to America increased.

Hassan met Swileh and Abdullah in Egypt in 2017 and was able to quickly get U.S. citizenship and a passport for the baby. Swileh’s application process took far longer, and she eventually received a denial for her request, “pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 9645.”

It led Hassan to take his son to the U.S. without his wife, according to AP.

Abdullah is no longer able to breathe on his own, and the family is preparing to take him off of life support.

Basim Elkarra, the director of CAIR’s Sacramento Valley chapter, said earlier this week that Swileh would travel to the U.S. on a I-130 visa, which allows entry to the country to close relatives of American citizens.

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told AP that this is “a very sad case, and our thoughts go out to this family at this time, at this trying time.”

Tags Donald Trump