“60 Minutes” was told weeks before the segment aired that a deported Malian husband and father, who was the subject of a sympathetic report on Sunday, claimed to have been gay in his asylum application, Fox News Digital confirmed.
Fox News previously obtained records showing Moussa Diawara alleged in his 2009 asylum application that he would face persecution if he were sent back to Mali due to his sexuality.
The “60 Minutes” segment depicted an anguished father deported to Africa with his wife and two children still living in the U.S. and noted that a U.S. judge said Diawara could be persecuted, pointing to fears over converting to Christianity. However, the show did not mention that Diawara’s application contradicted his family man narrative and the reason why he claimed he couldn’t return to his native country was because of his sexual orientation.
Fox News Digital has since obtained a copy of an email sent to CBS News by the Department of Homeland Security informing the network about Diawara’s claim, which was first reported by The New York Post.
The email was sent Oct. 6, nearly three weeks before Sunday’s segment aired.
A spokesperson for CBS News declined to comment.
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On his 2009 asylum application, Diawara said he feared for his life as a gay man if he was forced to return to Mali.
“My asylum application is based upon ground of well-founded past persecution and an undisputable fear of life-threatening [sic] to my person if I were to return to my country Mali. In fact, I had experienced extreme punishment and persecution based on the ground of my sexual orientation,” Diawara wrote in his asylum application.
“Since I came to the USA I had the possibilities [sic] to express my feelings to men without any embarrassment no reserve. Indeed, my tribal group and community as a whole had reported my sexual orientation to my family back home because such behavior is unwelcome in my society,” he continued. “My life is hence worth threatened if I have to go back to my country because I could be executed either by the Islamic group or the community.”
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DHS General Counsel James Percival, who was interviewed in the “60 Minutes” segment, took to social media after it aired, saying the newsmagazine made Diawara the “poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations.”
“His claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is ‘gay,’ just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is,” Percival wrote.
The segment put a spotlight on Diawara, who was living in the U.S. for 25 years without a criminal record, overstaying his tourist visa and getting nabbed by ICE and sent to Ghana, which ultimately sent him to his home country of Mali. According to the report, Diawara has since fled to an undisclosed African country.
During the segment, Percival noted there is “a lot of fraud” in the immigration system and many “fear claims” are untrue.
A “60 Minutes” insider previously defended the integrity of the report, pointing to how Diawara’s claim that “part of the reason he didn’t feel safe” was for religious reasons did make the broadcast. According to the report, he had converted to Christianity, and Mali is a Muslim-majority nation.
“The broadcast acknowledged DHS questioned the credibility of Moussa Diawara’s fear of persecution, which they’re claiming now on social media,” the insider told Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Brian Flood and Brooke Taylor contributed to this report.
