Why Was a Brown University Surgeon Deported to Lebanon?

Last week, a Brown University surgeon was deported to Lebanon in violation of a court order. While it was not immediately clear why the doctor, Rasha Alawieh, had been detained and deported, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later alleged that she had expressed support for the terrorist group Hezbollah. 

“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” the DHS said in a Monday post on X.

Alawieh, who graduated from medical school in Lebanon, first came to the United States in 2018 to start a fellowship at Ohio State University. She later began working as a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school and obtained an H-1B visa.

According to CNN, Alawieh’s immigration issues first began last month, when she traveled to Lebanon, and her visa to renter the United States was delayed due to increased security vetting of Lebanese travelers. The DHS posted on X that Alawieh had attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah who was assassinated by Israeli forces last year. “Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah,” the post reads.

It’s unclear why Alawieh was stopped by border officials when she arrived in Boston last Friday. A court filing obtained by Boston local news station WCVB states that Alawieh was found with photos of Nasrallah on her phone—though, again, it’s not clear why her phone was being searched in the first place.

“In explaining why these multiple photos were deleted by her one to two days before she arrived at Logan Airport, Dr. Alawieh stated that she did not want to give authorities the perception that she supports Hezbollah and the Ayatollah politically or militarily,” the filing read.

According to the document, Alawieh explained “I think if you listen to one of his sermons, you would know what I mean. He is a religious, spiritual person. As I said, he has very high value. His teachings are about spirituality and morality.”

The day after Alawieh was detained, her first cousin filed a complaint in federal court alleging that border officials had violated her Fifth Amendment right to due process. A judge agreed, ruling that Alawieh could not be taken out of Massachusetts without at least a “forty-eight hours prior notice to the Court,” according to CNN.

Officials moved to deport Alawieh anyway—leaving her path back to the United States murky. Alawieh is not the only legal U.S. resident to face deportation after nebulous allegations of support for terrorism. Columbia student activist Mahmoud Khalil was seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and taken to an immigration detention center in Louisiana earlier this month. While Khalil, a green card holder, hasn’t been accused of any crime, Trump administration officials have explicitly singled out his speech as the cause of his seizure. Khalil had organized a series of anti-Israel protests, during which protesters allegedly distributed flyers bearing Hamas logos, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“This administration is not going tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans,” Leavitt said last week. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for siding with terrorists, period.”

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