A medical professor at Brown University was deported to Lebanon over the weekend despite having a valid US work visa, with judge orders preventing immediate removal from the country.
Federal prosecutors allegedly deported 34-year-old Rasha Alawieh on Monday after discovering “sympathetic photos and videos” on the mobile phones of a well-known Iran-backed Hezbollah figure. According to Reuters, Alawie told federal agents that she had recently attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrara.
The lawsuit, centered around Alawier, comes as Donald Trump’s second presidential administration has expanded immigration policies and targeted universities.
On Sunday, the US deported more than 250 migrants, who are members of the Venezuelan and Salvador gang, to El Salvador, to El Salvador, despite the judge’s orders halted flights.
Alawie was taken into custody at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday after traveling to Lebanon to visit his family. Her cousin, Yara Shev, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in Massachusetts federal court.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin issued an order Monday scheduling an Alawie hearing, saying the federal government must give courts 48 hours of notice before removal from the country. However, as reported by CNN, the hearing was delayed at the request of Shehab’s attorneys after the other lawyers representing Shehab cited “full hard work” and other lawyers representing Shehab retreated from the case. Other details were not available immediately.
Nevertheless, in a clear rebellion against Sorokin’s orders from Friday, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) placed Alawier on a flight to Paris, a presumably a layover to Lebanon.
On Sunday, Sorokin said in court documents that the CBP had received a notice of the court order but “then intentionally refused the order by sending (Alawieh) out of the United States.” Sorokin ordered the government to respond to “serious allegations with legal and de facto responses” and explanations of the event version by Monday morning ahead of the scheduled court hearing.
CBP did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. In a comment to Reuters, a CBP spokesman said the officers would “abide by strict protocols to identify and suspend threats and halt threats,” and said there was a burden on those who were able to establish tolerance for the United States.
In a statement received by Reuters, Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin was called deportation.
“Visa is a privilege, not a right. Praise and support terrorists who kill Americans is the reason why visas are denied,” she said.
In a statement, a Brown spokesperson said the university “wanes to learn more about what happened, but we need to be aware of publicly sharing information about individuals’ personal circumstances.”
Brown pointed out that Alawier was clinically appointed with the university but was an employee of Brown Medicine, a nonprofit organization that is affiliated with the medical school but not run by the university.
On Sunday, after Alawie’s deportation, Brown sent an email advised international students and faculty to avoid international travel due to “potential changes to travel restrictions and travel bans.”
Dr. George Baylis, a brown medical professor who works with Alawie in the university’s department of kidney disease and hypertension, told The New York Times that the staff were “all furious.”
“We don’t know why this happened,” he said.
Before the massive deportation to El Salvador on Sunday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said the Trump White House could not accelerate deportation by calling for alien enemy law, a centuries-old wartime law that would grant the president its capabilities. Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to explain whether he violated the judge’s order in a massive deportation at a hearing scheduled for late Monday afternoon.
On Sunday, the White House issued a promotional statement for Boasberg, an extraordinary exhibit of rebellion against the judiciary that served as a check for presidential forces throughout American history.
“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movement of an aircraft. It is full of foreign foreign terrorists physically expelled from the soil of the United States,” White House spokesperson Carolyn Leavitt said in a statement.
The removal of Alawier also comes when the Trump administration targeted universities, particularly Columbia University, after a series of Palestinian protests seen in 2024.
Recently, federal law enforcement, immigration and customs enforcement, has detained Mahmoud Khalil, a former Colombian graduate student with a green card, who is the leader of the protest, for deportation.
Ranjani Srinivasan, a graduate student in Colombia, India, was targeted by immigration authorities in the beginning of March despite having no connection to the protests. According to the New York Times, Srinivasan fled to Canada.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also considering new travel restrictions for citizens of dozens of countries. The national draft list showed three separate groups that received full or partial visa suspensions.
