A Sunday segment on “60 Minutes” profiled Moussa Diawara, a Malian national deported after 25 years in the United States, portraying him as a devoted husband and father wrongly removed from the country. But federal immigration officials say the broadcast left out a key detail: in his 2009 asylum application, Diawara said he feared returning to Mali because he is gay.
The CBS News segment interviewed Diawara’s wife and his two children, ages 16 and 12, as part of a broader look at deportations under the Trump administration. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the case instead illustrates fraud in the asylum system.
“The ’60 Minutes’ sob story tonight highlighted an illegal alien and his wife and two children. One problem. The illegal alien claimed he was a HOMOSEXUAL in order to try and dodge deportation to Mali,” ICE wrote on X.
Fox News said it obtained Diawara’s 2009 asylum application, in which he wrote that he faced “undisputable fear of life threatening to my person if I were to return to my country Mali” based on his sexual orientation.
“Since I came to the USA I had the possibilities 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,” Diawara wrote. “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.”
Diawara also wrote that he had been “banished” from Malian community activities because he is “a homosexual” and had received threats as a result.
Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival, who appeared in the “60 Minutes” segment, said afterward on social media that the program made Diawara the “poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations,” adding, “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 entered the U.S. in 2001, overstayed a tourist visa, and had no criminal record before ICE detained him and sent him to Ghana, which then sent him on to Mali. According to the “60 Minutes” report, Diawara has since fled Mali for another, undisclosed African country.
The CBS broadcast cited a U.S. judge’s finding that Diawara could face persecution in Mali, pointing to his conversion to Christianity in a majority-Muslim country. It did not mention the asylum application’s reference to his sexual orientation.
During the segment, Percival said there is “a lot of fraud” in the immigration system and that many asylum seekers’ “fear claims” are untrue.
A “60 Minutes” insider told Fox News Digital that the broadcast did include Diawara’s stated religious fears as “part of the reason he didn’t feel safe,” and acknowledged that DHS had separately questioned the credibility of his persecution claim. “We also acknowledge that the DHS questioned the credibility of Moussa Diawara’s fear of persecution, which they’re claiming now on social media,” the insider said.
DHS told CBS News that Ghana had provided the United States with “diplomatic assurances for his safety” before his removal. It is unclear whether CBS News knew of the asylum application’s contents when the segment aired; a network spokesperson declined to comment.
Percival also said he had spoken with “60 Minutes” producers for nearly an hour about deportations of people he described as “vicious killers and rapists” removed to third countries, but said the broadcast did not include that portion of the interview. “Unfortunately, as they always do, they selectively edited the video and included none of that. They did promise they would publish the entire interview, so I look forward to my comments being posted in full this week,” he wrote. Percival did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
ICE’s official account on X followed up with an additional post: “Fake & Gay! Moussa Diawara, the Malian national featured in this shockingly poorly researched @60Minutes report, now faces allegations of immigration FRAUD after his asylum application surfaced, revealing that he claimed to be a HOMOSEXUAL man who feared persecution in Mali.”
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