The Department of Homeland Security says CBS News’ “60 Minutes” left out a key fact when it profiled Moussa Diawara, an illegal immigrant from Mali who was deported to Ghana in July: his asylum application claimed he was gay.
Diawara is married to a woman and has two children with her.
DHS General Counsel James Percival called out the omission on X after the segment aired, writing that “60 Minutes” had made Diawara “its poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations.” Percival said he pulled Diawara’s immigration file and found “his claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is ‘gay,’ just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is.”
Diawara overstayed a tourist visa and was ordered removed by a judge in 2012 after claiming refugee status. That status, DHS says, was built on the claim that he feared persecution in Mali for being gay — a claim the department says is undercut by his marriage and two kids.
DHS says it sent Diawara to Ghana, a third country that provided diplomatic assurances for his safety, rather than back to Mali directly.
“DHS removed this illegal to a third country that provided diplomatic assurances for his safety. [60 Minutes] left this absurd bit of fraud out of their ‘Texas dad’ segment.”
Fox News obtained Diawara’s asylum application, in which he wrote: “since I came to the USA I had the possibilities to express my feelings to men without any embarrassment no reserve.” He also wrote, “Although I was born as a boy, but things appeared differently for me as I was already having female behaviors and feelings. I was more comfortable being intimate with boys rather than with girls.”
In the “60 Minutes” segment, Diawara claimed that within days of landing in Ghana, authorities there put him on a flight to Mali. CBS News reported that he was then “homeless and hiding in Mali, fearing for his safety,” and that he later escaped to another country with help from local truckers after several weeks. The outlet did not name that country, citing concern for his safety.
CBS has not publicly addressed DHS’s claim that the asylum fraud detail was omitted from the broadcast.
