Al Jazeera News :
The Yemeni mother of a dying two-year-old boy has been barred from travelling to the United States to see her son due to President Donald Trump’s controversial ban on visitors from her country.
Shaima Swileh’s husband, Ali Hassan appealed to the US State Department on Monday to expedite his wife’s application for a waiver so she could say goodbye to their son, Abdulla, who is on life support.
“My wife is calling me every day, wanting to kiss and hold her son for one last time,” the 22-year-old US national said as he broke down in tears. “Time is running out. Please help us get my family together again.”
Abdulla has a rare degenerative brain disease and may not be able to withstand life support for much longer, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement last week.
Swileh’s visa was rejected last year because of the so-called Muslim ban, under which the Trump administration imposed travel restrictions on people from some Muslim-majority countries.
The 21-year-old mother, who lives in Egypt, applied for a waiver, but has been waiting to hear back for more than a year, despite repeated requests to expedite her case, CAIR said.
“Now we see the Muslim ban’s effect in the most dehumanising way,” said Basim Elkarra, a campaigner at CAIR, on Monday.
Yemen – UN official warns of daunting task to end four-year war (1:52)
“We are calling on the Department of State to issue a Muslims ban waiver, to allow Shaima Swileh, the wife of a US citizen, the mother of a US citizen, to hold her child one last time and to allow her to mourn with dignity.”
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, Hassan said his child will not survive the journey to Egypt’s capital, Cairo, where Swileh lives.
The couple met and married in Yemen, according to the Chronicle. Their son was born in Yemen, nearly two years after the country’s civil war began.
The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished country to the verge of famine, prompting the United Nations to call the situation there “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
The Yemeni mother of a dying two-year-old boy has been barred from travelling to the United States to see her son due to President Donald Trump’s controversial ban on visitors from her country.
Shaima Swileh’s husband, Ali Hassan appealed to the US State Department on Monday to expedite his wife’s application for a waiver so she could say goodbye to their son, Abdulla, who is on life support.
“My wife is calling me every day, wanting to kiss and hold her son for one last time,” the 22-year-old US national said as he broke down in tears. “Time is running out. Please help us get my family together again.”
Abdulla has a rare degenerative brain disease and may not be able to withstand life support for much longer, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement last week.
Swileh’s visa was rejected last year because of the so-called Muslim ban, under which the Trump administration imposed travel restrictions on people from some Muslim-majority countries.
The 21-year-old mother, who lives in Egypt, applied for a waiver, but has been waiting to hear back for more than a year, despite repeated requests to expedite her case, CAIR said.
“Now we see the Muslim ban’s effect in the most dehumanising way,” said Basim Elkarra, a campaigner at CAIR, on Monday.
Yemen – UN official warns of daunting task to end four-year war (1:52)
“We are calling on the Department of State to issue a Muslims ban waiver, to allow Shaima Swileh, the wife of a US citizen, the mother of a US citizen, to hold her child one last time and to allow her to mourn with dignity.”
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, Hassan said his child will not survive the journey to Egypt’s capital, Cairo, where Swileh lives.
The couple met and married in Yemen, according to the Chronicle. Their son was born in Yemen, nearly two years after the country’s civil war began.
The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished country to the verge of famine, prompting the United Nations to call the situation there “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
