5 False Claims About Trump's Refugee Ban

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Monday, February 13, 2017

Iraqi man claims mother died after being turned away by US officials

Women react at the site after a suicide car bomb attack at the shopping area of Karrada, a largely Shi'ite district, in Baghdad, Iraq July 4, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Ahmed Saad)

Many opponents of Trump's order claim that the temporary halt in refugee processing could be a matter of life or death for some of the most vulnerable refugees who've already cleared the vetting process and are just waiting to come to the U.S.

On Jan. 31, the story of one Iraqi man living in Michigan who claimed that his sick mother died one day after being turned away due to the executive order went viral after it was reported by a local Fox News affiliate. Opponents of the order thought they finally had one piece of concrete news to prove the consequences of Trump's order.

However, the leader of a mosque in Dearborn explained later that Mike Hager lied when he told local news station Fox 2 about his mother's ordeal. Husham Al-Hussainy, the imam at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn, explained that Hager's mom had kidney disease and died about five days before the travel ban was issued.

"The 22nd of January, his mom died," Al-Hussainy explained. "She did die but that was a couple weeks ago — before the ban."