Executive Order Separates Badly Burned Iraqi Boy From Family
BOSTON (CBS) - On Tuesday, Massachusetts joined the ACLU lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration. Attorney General Maura Healey calls it "harmful, discriminatory and unconstitutional."
Many families have been torn apart including the family of a boy who was badly burned at a refugee camp.
"Dilbreen, at the age of about a year and a half, was severely burned," said Carrie Schuchardt from House of Peace in Ipswich.
After a heater exploded in the Iraqi refugee camp where he was sleeping, the British-based organization Road to Peace got two travel visas and rushed the boy to Shriner's Hospital in Boston along with his father.
After preliminary surgery, his dad returned to their war-ravaged country to be with his wife as she gave birth to Dilbreen's little brother. It was November 8th an hour before Donald Trump won the election. They named the baby 'Trump.'
Dilbreen was set for a second surgery this month. His family was set to stay at the Peace House in Ipswich. Then they got the news their visas were suddenly revoked.
"So they are stranded in Iraq," Schuchardt said. "The child is here. The need for surgery is pressing."
This as Massachusetts' top state prosecutor files a lawsuit challenging the president's executive order temporary halting travel from Iraq and six other majority-Muslim countries.
"It threatens the vitality, the livelihood, the lifeblood that drives so much of Massachusetts," Attorney General Maura Healey said Tuesday.
While Healey's suit would protect immigrants and visa holders already in the United States, it's unclear if it would help Dilbreen, his parents, or little brother named after Trump.
"It's ironic, possibly humorous, but it's also in a way very meaningful because perhaps that child can redeem that name Trump," Schuchardt said.
Dilbreen is staying with a family in Michigan. He has surgery scheduled for Feb. 5 and attorneys are trying to get his family special waivers.
For more information about Road to Peace, visit their website www.roadtopeace.org.uk.