Boy whose mom fought U.S. ban to see him dies

Father buries 2-year-old in Calif. Islamic cemetery

LODI, Calif. — The father of a 2-year-old boy who was separated from his Yemeni mother until she successfully fought the Trump administration’s travel ban to see him in the United States laid his body to rest Saturday, a day after the child was taken off life support at a hospital.

Under a cloudless winter day, Ali Hassan carried his son’s small body to be buried at an Islamic cemetery in California’s Central Valley.

“I’m a U.S. citizen. My son is a U.S. citizen,” the 22-year-old father told mourners at a service before burial. “The Muslim ban kept my wife from coming to the U.S. for over a year. It forced me to choose between my son’s health and keeping our family together. We are angry, but we know our son did not die in vain.”

The child’s distraught mother mourned privately at home.

Abdullah Hassan died Friday at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where his father took him in the fall to get treatment for a degenerative brain condition. He had been on life support when his 21-year-old mother, Shaima Swileh, arrived last week.

Hassan and his wife moved to Egypt after marrying in war-torn Yemen in 2016. Because she is Yemeni, Swileh was restricted from traveling to the United States under the White House travel ban that’s keeping citizens from Yemen and four other mostly Muslim countries, along with North Korea and Venezuela, from entering the country.

When the boy’s health worsened, the father went ahead to California in October to get their son help. As the couple fought for a waiver, doctors put Abdullah on life support.

Daisy Nguyen The Associated Press Ali Hassan, center, and his father gather outside the mosque where prayers were held before the burial of his 2-year-old son, Abdullah, Saturday in Lodi, Calif.