The 2-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 announced.
Abdullah Hassan died in 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. Swileh is not an American citizen and remained in Egypt while fighting for a visa.
"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 Friday by the council.
FILE - This recent undated photo, released Monday, Dec. 17, 2018, by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Sacramento, Calif., shows Ali Hassan with his dying 2-year-old son Abdullah in a Sacramento hospital. Abdullah Hassan, the 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 announced Friday, Dec. 28 that Abdullah died in an Oakland, Calif., hospital. He suffered from a genetic brain condition. (Council on American-Islamic Relations via AP, File)
A funeral is scheduled for Saturday.
Hassan is a U.S. citizen who lives in Stockton, California. Hassan and his wife Shaima Swileh moved to Egypt after marrying in war-torn Yemen in 2016.
Swileh had been trying to get a visa since 2017, so the family could move to the United States.
Citizens from Yemen and four other mostly Muslim countries, along with North Korea and Venezuela, are restricted from coming to the United States under President Donald Trump' s travel ban.
When the boy's health worsened, Hassan went ahead to California in October to get their son help, and Swileh remained in Egypt hoping for a visa. 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 earlier this month.
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 American-Islamic Relations, which sued on Dec. 16, said Basim Elkarra, executive director of the group in Sacramento.
The State Department granted Swileh a waiver the next day.
"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. "In his short life, Abdullah has been a guiding light for all of us in the fight against xenophobia and family separation."
Swileh held her son for the first time in the hospital on Dec. 19.
This story has been corrected to show that the boy's first name is spelled Abdullah, not Abdallah.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A United States refugee processing center in Johannesburg was raided by immigration authorities, South Africa's Home Affairs Ministry said Wednesday while denying any U.S. officials were arrested or applicants harassed.
Seven Kenyan nationals were arrested during the operation on Tuesday while working illegally at the center which processes applications by white South Africans who have been given priority for refugee status in the U.S. by the Trump administration after claims they are being persecuted by the Black-led government.
That claim over the treatment of members of South Africa's Afrikaner white minority group has been widely rejected but has been central to the deterioration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Africa's most advanced economy since President Donald Trump returned to office.
The Home Affairs Ministry said the detained Kenyans were working at the site while in the country on tourist visas which did not allow them to work, and U.S. officials working with the “undocumented workers” at the center “raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol.”
It said no U.S. officials were arrested in the raid and it was not a diplomatic site.
South Africa's Foreign Ministry has started “formal diplomatic engagements with both the United States and Kenya to resolve this matter,” the Home Affairs Ministry said.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told CNN that the U.S. was still gathering information on the raid but “interfering in our refugee operations is unacceptable.” The U.S. government is “seeking immediate clarification from the South African government” and it expects “full cooperation and accountability,” Pigott said.
The U.S. Embassy in South Africa didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The raid, which involved immigration and law enforcement officers, is bound to increase tensions between the two countries.
Trump has singled out South Africa for criticism for months on a range of issues, claiming that Afrikaners are being killed and having their land seized, and that South Africa is pursuing anti-white policies at home and an anti-American foreign policy abroad through its diplomatic relations with Palestinian authorities and Iran.
The U.S. boycotted last month's Group of 20 world leaders summit in South Africa and Trump said it will exclude South Africa from the group when it hosts the annual summit in Florida next year. Trump also issued an executive order in February that said the U.S. would stop aid and assistance to South Africa over what it called its “egregious actions.”
South Africa's government said the U.S. claims over the persecution of Afrikaners are based on misinformation and white South Africans don't meet the criteria for refugee status because there is no persecution, although it wouldn't stop anyone applying. Afrikaners are white South Africans descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century.
The Trump administration announced in October it was dramatically cutting the annual quota for refugees allowed in the U.S. to 7,500 from a previous limit of 125,000 and white South Africans would be given most of the places. A first group of white South African refugees had already arrived in the U.S. under the new program for them in May. It's not clear how many have been relocated since then.
The South African Home Affairs Ministry didn't say who the Kenyans arrested at the refugee processing site worked for, but the U.S. government has contracted a Kenya-based company, RSC Africa, to process refugee applications by white South Africans, according to a statement last month by the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.
RSC Africa is operated by Church World Service, a U.S.-based nongovernment organization that offers humanitarian aid and refugee assistance across the world and works with the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
The statement by South Africa's Home Affairs Ministry said Kenyan nationals had previously been denied visas to travel to South Africa to work on the U.S. refugee program and the raid “showcases the commitment that South Africa shares with the United States to combating illegal immigration and visa abuse in all its forms.”
The seven Kenyan nationals were given deportation orders and banned from entering South Africa for a five-year period, South African authorities said.
Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
FILE - Refugees from South Africa arrive, Monday, May 12, 2025, at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Refugees from South Africa, arrive Monday, May 12, 2025, at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
