An Iraqi-American man claimed that his ailing mother, a United States green card holder, died after she was denied entry back into the country on account of President Donald Trump’s executive order, TIME magazine reported on Wednesday, quoting Fox 2 Detroit. Hager, who had served with US coalition forces in Iraq, said his mother would have been alive if it were not for the restrictions on people travelling form Muslim-majority countries.

Hager said his mother had fallen ill during a family trip to her birthplace in Iraq and wanted to return to America for better medical facilities. “She knew that if we send her back to the hospital [in Iraq] she was going to die – she was not going to make it,” he told the news channel.

Hager expressed his fears over the order’s implication on his life and family. “You have to understand. You have family too. Keep the terrorists aside but do not mix everybody together,” Hager told Trump in a public message.

Hager served with coalition forces in Iraq as an interpreter and sustained injuries while there. His family had reportedly fled Iraq in 1995 to escape the Gulf War.

He blamed Trump for his mother’s death. “They [US government] destroyed us. I went with my family, I came back by myself. They destroyed our family,” he told the news channel.

Trump had signed an order banning Muslims from seven nations from entering the US for four months. Refugees from Syria are banned from entering the US indefinitely. The new immigration policies have caused massive global outrage. However, Trump has defended his move by saying that around 40 Muslim-majority nations were not affected by the executive order. He also blamed the media for propagating false news.