DHS Official Challenges CBS’s 60 Minutes Deportation Narrative
CBS is facing another credibility fight after its Sunday night program, “60 Minutes,” presented the deportation of Moussa Diawara as an example of an unfair immigration policy. The report focused heavily on Diawara’s family and his life in the United States.
Diawara is 57 and originally from Mali. He had lived in the Houston area for more than 25 years and worked as an Uber driver. He also married a U.S. citizen and raised two children. According to the report, ICE detained him on July 11 and placed him on a charter flight to Ghana near the end of July. Ghanaian authorities then sent him to Mali.
Diawara said he was deported without being able to speak with his lawyer or appear before a judge. The segment portrayed him as the victim of what it described as a “cruel and inhumane” deportation policy. His family was featured prominently, including his 16-year-old son, Corey Diawara, who said, “It feels really empty without him,” after his father was sent away.
The 60 Minutes report also said Diawara had entered the country on a tourist visa, overstayed, and later received a 2012 immigration judge’s ruling stating that he could not be deported to Mali because he would face persecution there. The program connected those concerns to Diawara’s conversion to Christianity and noted that Mali is a Muslim-majority country.
The program’s social media post said Diawara had no criminal record and claimed he was sent to a country an immigration judge had previously ruled he could not be deported to. It also said Diawara was unable to speak to his lawyer or a judge before his removal.
The Department of Homeland Security offered a different perspective. In a statement to 60 Minutes, DHS said Ghana had provided “diplomatic assurances for his safety.” The department also questioned the credibility of Diawara’s stated fears about persecution in Mali.
DHS General Counsel James Percival then said the CBS report left out a critical detail from Diawara’s file. According to Percival, the file did not identify conversion to Christianity as the reason Diawara feared returning to Mali. Instead, Percival said the stated basis was his sexual orientation.
“This illegal alien is @60Minutes poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations,” Percival wrote. “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.”
That discrepancy is now at the center of the criticism aimed at CBS. The segment presented one explanation for Diawara’s fear of returning to Mali, while Percival says the government file contained another. The result was a deeply sympathetic television story that DHS officials argue did not present the full picture.
The criticism also touches on a wider immigration issue raised in the report: claims of persecution used to support immigration cases. The report noted that federal authorities have prosecuted attorneys in recent years for coaching clients to fabricate persecution claims. Percival cited that history while arguing that Diawara’s case should not be used as a simple example of someone who was wrongfully deported.
The controversy leaves viewers with two sharply different accounts. CBS emphasized Diawara’s family, his decades in the United States, and his claim that he was denied access to legal help. DHS emphasized the contents of his file, the assurances from Ghana, and questions about the basis for his fear of returning to Mali.
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. https://t.co/zlTTNudG9w
— James Percival (@DHSGenCounsel) October 26, 2026