{"id":27358,"date":"2018-12-29T20:22:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T20:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27358"},"modified":"2018-12-29T20:22:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T20:22:20","slug":"two-year-old-yemeni-boy-whose-mother-sued-us-to-see-him-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27358","title":{"rendered":"Two-year-old Yemeni boy whose mother sued US to see him dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The two-year-old son of a Yemeni woman who sued the Trump administration<\/a> to let her into the country to be with the ailing boy has died, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has announced.<\/p>\n

Abdullah Hassan died on Friday in UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland in the United States<\/a>, where his father Ali Hassan brought him to get treatment for a genetic brain disorder.<\/p>\n

Ali Hassan is a US citizen who lives in Stockton, California. He and his wife Shaima Swileh moved to Egypt after marrying in war-torn Yemen<\/a> in 2016.<\/p>\n

Swileh is not an American citizen and remained in Egypt<\/a> while fighting for a visa.<\/p>\n

‘The light of our lives’<\/h2>\n

“We are heartbroken. We had to say goodbye to our baby, the light of our lives,” Ali Hassan was quoted as saying in the statement published by the council.<\/p>\n

A funeral is scheduled for Saturday.<\/p>\n

Swileh had been trying to get a visa since 2017, so the family could move to the US.<\/p>\n

Citizens from Yemen and four other mostly Muslim countries, along with North Korea and Venezuela, are restricted from coming to the US under President Donald Trump’ s travel ban<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rights groups sought to overturn the ban in the US Supreme Court, claiming it was biased against Muslims. But the top court rejected the petition<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n

Muslim body demanded waiver<\/h2>\n

When the boy’s health worsened, the father went to California in October to get their son help, while Swileh remained in Egypt hoping for a visa.<\/p>\n

As the couple fought for a waiver, doctors put Abdullah on life support.<\/p>\n

“My wife is calling me every day wanting to kiss and hold her son for the one last time,” said Ali Hassan, choking up at a news conference earlier this month.<\/p>\n

He started losing hope and was considering pulling his son off life support to end his suffering.<\/p>\n

But a hospital social worker reached out to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sued on December 16, said Basim Elkarra, executive director of the group in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

The State Department granted Swileh a waiver the next day.<\/p>\n

“With their courage, this family has inspired our nation to confront the realities of Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban,” said Saad Sweilem, a lawyer with the council who represents the family.<\/p>\n

“In his short life, Abdullah has been a guiding light for all of us in the fight against xenophobia and family separation.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two-year-old son of a Yemeni woman who sued the Trump administration to let her into the country to be with the ailing boy has died, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has announced. Abdullah Hassan died on Friday in UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland in the United States, where his father Ali Hassan brought…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}