The most telling detail in a recent TV segment wasn’t what the cameras showed. It was what the cameras refused to see. A popular news program aired a story about a father and husband from Mali who was sent to Ghana. The story painted him as a victim of wrongful deportation. But the official file told a very different tale.
The Trump administration slammed CBS for leaving out an ‘absurd bit of fraud’ from the ’60 Minutes’ profile. The Department of Homeland Security says the network ignored a key reason the man was removed. This isn’t just a media gaffe. It is a direct hit on how the public understands our borders.
Moussa Diawara was deported to Ghana in July. He had overstayed a tourist visa more than ten years ago. He claimed refugee status to stop his return to Mali. The ’60 Minutes’ segment called him a ‘poster child for wrongful deportations.’ But the government has the paperwork to prove otherwise.
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
According to the New York Post, DHS General Counsel James Percival found a strange claim in Diawara’s file. The man said he feared returning to Mali because he is gay. Yet, the file shows he is married to a woman. He even has two children with her. This contradiction is the heart of the issue.
The government insists the news program left out the fraud. Percival wrote on X that the man claimed he would be persecuted for his homosexuality. A woman he shares two children with did not stop this statement. The department removed him to a third country that promised his safety.
On his asylum application, Diawara wrote that he could express feelings to men without embarrassment. He admitted he was more comfortable being intimate with boys. The New York Post notes he said he had ‘female behaviors and feelings’ since birth. The network chose to ignore these words.
This isn’t about one man’s story. It is about the trust we place in our news. When a program leaves out facts that change the whole story, it misleads the viewer. Officials told The Washington Examiner that journalists spreading ‘misinformation and defamation’ can report their manufactured stories from directly outside. They do not need inside access to do that.
The administration argues that the public deserves the full truth. A judge granted Diawara’s final order of removal in 2012. The fraud claim was known long before the TV cameras arrived. By hiding the truth, the show protects a narrative that does not fit the facts.
We need to know when the rules are bent. We need to know when the story is sold to fit a view. The government says the man was removed safely to a place that assured his protection. The network says he was cast out and left homeless. Both cannot be true. The paperwork points to the lie.
We cannot let a TV show rewrite the law with a good story. The facts are in the file. The man claimed asylum based on a lie about his marriage. The administration caught it. The question now is whether the viewers will catch it too.
