What Happened with the Deportation of a Brown University Doctor?

This appears to be the outrage of the day, or at least one of them. A doctor at Brown University who had a green card was deported to Lebanon after CBP agents found photos of Hassan Nasrallah on her phone. The  judge was planning a hearing to determine if his orders not to deport her were ignored but that hearing has now been delayed.

A hearing over the deportation of a Brown professor of medicine, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, will no longer take place today, according to a court filing.

The delay came after a request from Alawieh’s side, as her team of lawyers is changing and requested more time to submit filings and respond.

The story here is that Dr. Alawieh returned to Lebanon for a visit home. She made the return flight to Logan airport in Boston, arriving last Thursday, at which point she was interviewed by CBP agents who examined her phone.

Federal authorities say in court documents filed in the deportation case of Alawieh, 34, that custom and border officials found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders on her cell phone.

They also found “various other Hezbollah militants” in the deleted photo folder of her cell phone.

“With the discovery of these photographs and videos CHP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” the documents allege.

“As such CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”

In an interview, Dr. Alawieh admitted she had attended Nasrallah’s funeral and knew Hezbollah was a designated terrorist group. But she claimed she was a fan of his religious teaching not his politics. She also had photos of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on her phone.

“So I have a lot of Whatsapp groups with families and friends who send them. So I am a Shia Muslim and he is a religious figure. He has a lot of teachings and he is highly regarded in the Shia community,” Alawieh said, according to the transcript filed in court Monday.

“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,” she added about the sheikh, who was killed last September in an Israeli airstrike on his bunker in the Beirut suburbs.

Asked if she supported Nasrallah “in any way,” Alawieh initially denied doing so but later appeared to acknowledge that she supported and admired him “from a religious perspective.”

When questioned about photos of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Alawieh said that was typical of Shia Muslims. “It has nothing to do with politics,” the physician added. “It’s a purely religious thing. He’s a very big figure in our community.”

Based on what they found on her phone and her admissions to admiring Khamenei and Nasrallah, she was denied re-entry into the United States and was told her visa had been canceled.

A cousin of hers found a couple of lawyers to file a habeas corpus petition asking for her release on Friday. At 7:18 pm, about a half hour after the petition was filed, Judge Leo Sorokin issued an order saying that Dr. Alawieh should not be deported without 48 hours notice to him and an explanation. An attorney connected to the case tried to reach a CBP officer at the airport by phone but couldn’t get anyone. Dr. Alawieh claims she yelled out for a CBP officer but no one responded.

A CBP officer filed a sworn declaration saying no one at the airport learned of the court order. Dr. Alawieh was walked to the gate for a plane returning to Lebanon at 7:20 pm. That plane left the gate at 7:43 pm and took off at 7:59 pm. In all, the plane was in the air 41 minutes after the judge’s order was issued.

So, again, the plan was to hold a hearing today about why CBP didn’t heed the judge’s order but that has been delayed at the request of Dr. Alawieh who appears to be changing lawyers. She is now back in Lebanon and will have to get this straightened out before she can return to plead her case in person.

Finally, I have to say that the argument that Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei are just religious figures doesn’t make much sense. Khamenei is the Supreme Leader of Iran. Nasrallah was the secretary-general of Hezbollah, which is both a political party and a militant group. There’s no separating religious views from politics with either of them. But I guess we’ll find out if Judge Sorokin sees it differently.