President Donald Trump signed his travel-ban executive order on January 27, and subsequently, 348 people were denied boarding while attempting to travel to the U.S. from the seven banned Muslim-majority countries. Of the 348 people, the press headlined unrelentingly one devastating story: Iraqi-born Mike Hager and his sick mother, Naimma, were supposedly traveling from Iraq to their residences in Michigan when his mother, who has a green card and has lived in the U.S. since 1995, died after airport authorities refused to let her board the plane. “If they would have let us in, my mom — she would have made it and she would have been sitting right here next to me,” Hager told Fox 2 Detroit. “She’s gone because of [President Trump].”
But Fox 2 Detroit has now confirmed that Hager fabricated the entire incident. Airport security never denied his mother permission to travel back to the U.S.; in fact, she died five days before Trump had even signed the executive order.
Imam Husham Al-Hussainy, leader of the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn, Mich., told Fox 2 Detroit that Hager’s report was false. “The 22nd of January, his mom died,” he confirmed. Hager’s mother passed away from kidney disease.
