Photo: Emma Friedman/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A federal court hearing for a Brown University assistant professor and doctor was canceled Monday after she was deported to Lebanon last week, despite a judge’s order she stays in the country for the hearing.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is a kidney transplant specialist who has been working in the U.S. on a H-1B visa since 2018. She was detained at Logan Airport on Thursday after returning from a visit to Lebanon and was deported the next day. Alawieh’s cousin, Yara Chehab, then filed a complaint on her behalf in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ordered that Alawieh “shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without providing the Court 48 hours’ advance notice of the move and the reason therefor.” Attorneys for Chehab that the government had “‘willfully’ disobeyed the Court’s order,” according to court documents.
For its part, the government claims that Alawieh had already been deported by the time Custom and Border Protection officers received the judge’s order.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that Alawieh had “traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah— a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree. Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah.”
“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” the statement continued. “This is commonsense security.” According to the Boston Globe, lawyers representing Alawieh wrote that she follows Nasrallah “for his religious and spiritual teachings and not his politics.”
The lawyers that made the allegation that the government disobeyed the court’s order have since withdrawn from the case, saying it was a “result of further diligence.” One lawyer for Alawieh’s cousin remained on the case, and asked the judge to reschedule Monday’s hearing, “noting both a change in circumstance (Dr. Alawieh is now in Lebanon) and that new lawyers requiring additional time to prepare will be appearing,” according to court documents. The judge agreed, and gave dates later this month for both sides to respond.
Alawieh has gained support from groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Deporting lawful immigrants like Dr. Alawieh without any basis undermines the rule of law and reinforces suspicion that our immigration system is turning into an anti-Muslim, white supremacist institution that seeks to expel and turn away as many Muslims and people of color as possible,” the group said in a statement.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Nichole Davis (@NicholeDWBZ) reports.