60 Minutes on Sunday aired a segment on the deportation of Moussa Diawara, a 57-year-old man from Mali who had lived in the Houston area for more than 25 years.
During that time, Diawara married a U.S. citizen and raised two children while working as an Uber driver. The report had all the feels of the ‘Maryland Man’ framing.
60 Minutes even dragged his family in front of the camera for added effect.
“It feels really empty without him,” says 16-year-old Corey Diawara, whose father was deported in July. His father had lived in the U.S. for 25 years and had no criminal record. Moussa Diawara says he was deported without being able to speak to his lawyer or a judge. He was eventually sent to Mali, a country a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told 60 Minutes that Ghana had provided the U.S. with “diplomatic assurances for his safety.” DHS also questioned the credibility of Diawara’s arguments for fearing persecution in Mali. https://t.co/P6flp7Q41f
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 25, 2026
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… eventually sent to Mali, a country a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told 60 Minutes that Ghana had provided the U.S. with “diplomatic assurances for his safety.” DHS also questioned the credibility of Diawara’s arguments for fearing persecution in Mali.
The report said Diawara entered the country on a tourist visa, later overstayed, and received a 2012 immigration judge’s ruling that granted him withholding of removal from Mali on the grounds that he would face persecution there.
And this is where the story gets blown up by General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), James Percival.
ICE detained Diawara on July 11, the segment stated, and placed him on a charter flight to Ghana at the end of the month. Ghanaian authorities then sent him onward to Mali, according to the report and documents reviewed by the outlet. His persecution concerns, according to 60 Minutes, revolved around his conversion to Christianity, with Mali being a Muslim-majority nation.
Percival, however, states that he pulled Diawara’s file and discovered that he had claimed not to want to be sent to Mali because he was “gay.”
Wife. Two kids.
Percival notes that such a claim shows how riddled the immigration system is with fraud.
This illegal alien is @60Minutes poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations. I pulled his file. His claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is “gay,” just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is.
— James Percival (@DHSGenCounsel) October 26, 2026
DHS has said Ghana provided diplomatic assurances for Diawara’s safety, and 60 Minutes, well into their story, noted that the department questioned the credibility of his fear claim.
Going the route that Diawara allegedly did is not unheard of.
A 2026 BBC undercover investigation documented a network of UK legal advisers and firms charging thousands of pounds to coach migrants, particularly those from Pakistan and Bangladesh, to falsely claim they are gay in order to obtain asylum.
The advisers provided guidance on fabricating evidence such as staged photographs, support letters, and medical reports, prompting arrests and Home Office action against those involved in the scheme.
In the United States, sexual orientation is a recognized basis for asylum or withholding of removal. Federal authorities have prosecuted attorneys and preparers for coaching clients to fabricate persecution claims, including those based on LGBT status.
Well into the 60 Minutes report, they acknowledge that “the U.S. had a right to deport him, but not to Mali.”
They didn’t. They sent him to Ghana. Aside from the entire premise being false, the outlet did a bang-up job reporting here.
By ignoring the fraudulent core of his asylum file to run a sympathetic family package, 60 Minutes got completely caught spinning a false narrative that collapsed rather swiftly.
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