Mom, son reunited in US Yemeni woman holds dying boy after entering country on travel-ban waiver
SAN FRANCISCO — After battling U.S. immigration authorities for more than a year for the right to enter the country and then flying halfway around the world, a Yemeni mother finally got to hold her dying 2-year-old son.
A photograph released late Wednesday by the Council on American-islamic Relations shows Shaima Swileh cradling son Abdullah at a hospital in Oakland where he is on life support.
Swileh arrived at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday night after the advocacy group sued the U.S. to grant her a waiver from the Trump administration’s travel ban. She got a visa after a 17-month legal fight.
Swileh, wearing dark glasses and a white headscarf, was mobbed by friends and reporters at the airport.
“This is a difficult time for our family, but we are blessed to be together,” the boy’s father, Ali Hassan, said at the airport, asking for privacy.
The two were driven to see their son at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where Hassan had taken Abdullah in the fall to get treatment for a genetic brain disorder.
Hassan, a U.S. citizen who lives in Stockton, California, and Swileh moved to Egypt after marrying in war-torn Yemen in 2016 and had been trying to get a visa for Swileh since 2017 so the family could move to California.
Citizens from Yemen and four other mostly Muslim countries, along with North Korea and Venezuela, are restricted from coming to the United States under the travel ban enacted under President Donald Trump.
When the boy’s health worsened, Hassan went ahead to California in October to get their son help. As the couple fought for a waiver, doctors put Abdullah on life support.
“My wife is calling me every day wanting to kiss and hold her son for the one last time,” Hassan said, choking up at a news conference this week.
He started losing hope and was considering pulling his son off life support to end his suffering.
But then a hospital social worker reached out to the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, which sued Monday, said Basim Elkarra, executive director of the group in Sacramento.
The State Department granted Swileh a waiver the next day.
Department spokesman Robert Palladino called it “a very sad case, and our thoughts go out to this family at this time, at this trying time.”
He said he could not comment on the family’s situation but that in general cases are handled individually, and U.S. officials try to facilitate legitimate travel to the United States while protecting national security.