Mourners honor boy whose Yemeni mom fought travel ban

Mourners at a mosque in California said goodbye Saturday to a 2-year-old boy whose Yemeni mother successfully fought the Trump administration’s travel ban to hold the dying boy again in the United States.

Abdullah Hassan died Friday at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where his father, Ali Hassan, brought him in the fall to get treatment for a genetic brain disorder, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said. He had been on life support when his mother, Shaima Swileh, arrived last week.

“We are heartbroken. We had to say goodbye to our baby, the light of our lives,” Hassan, a U.S. citizen, said in a statement released by the advocacy group.

Hassan and members of the Islamic community in central California prayed at a funeral for Abdullah and listened to remarks from Muhammad Younus, imam of the California Islamic Center in the farming town of Lodi.

The casket covered by a white and green cloth was carried in, and the men in attendance could touch it before it was taken to a nearby cemetery and buried. In Muslim tradition, a body must be buried within 72 hours of death.