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A judge has ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to court Monday morning to explain why Ivy League doctor Rasha Alawieh was deported to Lebanon Friday, defying a previous court order.
Alawieh, a Brown Medicine doctor, was detained at Boston’s Logan Airport Thursday after returning from a trip visiting family in Lebanon.
U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin ordered that Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen, not be deported without giving the court 48 hours’ notice and should remain in Massachusetts. But, despite the order, the medic arrived back in Lebanon Sunday morning, the Providence Journalreports.
Alawieh, who specializes in kidney medicine, was reportedly on a valid H-1B visa she acquired from the American consulate in Lebanon, according to Thomas S. Brown, a lawyer who works on immigration and visa applications and cases for doctors attached to Brown Medicine.
The doctor has studied and worked in the U.S. for six years. She has been working at Rhode Island Hospital for the last year caring for kidney transplant recipients, the transplant division’s medical director Dr George Bayliss said.
“I am outraged and upset,” Bayliss told the Boston Globe.“The government is acting without regard for the courts.”
Rasha Alawieh is a doctor specializing in kidneys. She has been working at Rhode Island Hospital in the kidney transplant team, caring for patients before and after the process. Her lawyers are fighting the deportation and a judge has ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to explain why she was deported in court Monday morning.
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Rasha Alawieh is a doctor specializing in kidneys. She has been working at Rhode Island Hospital in the kidney transplant team, caring for patients before and after the process. Her lawyers are fighting the deportation and a judge has ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to explain why she was deported in court Monday morning. (Handout)
The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday morning at the John J. Moakley Courthouse in Boston.
Lawyers for the doctor filed a notice of apparent violation after Alawieh was put on a flight to Lebanon. They claimed the government “had actual notice of this court’s order and willfully disobeyed this court’s order.”
Sorokin ordered the Trump administration to answer their claim in court. “These allegations are supported by a detailed and specific timeline in an underoath affidavit filed by an attorney,” Sorokin wrote in court documents. “The government shall respond to these serious allegations with a legal and factual response setting forth its version of events.”
“In addition, the government shall preserve all of the documents bearing on Dr. Alawieh’s arrival and removal since the issuance of the visa described in the petition including emails and text messages.”
Hilton Beckham, assistant public affairs commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, said in a statement that “arriving aliens bear the burden of establishing admissibility” to the U.S.
“Our CBP officers adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats, using rigorous screening, vetting, strong law enforcement partnerships, and keen inspectional skills to keep threats out of the country. CBP is committed to protecting the United States from national security threats,” Beckham said.
A rally to protest Alawieh’s deportation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at Rhode Island’s State House lawn.
It comes amid the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Over the weekend the White House announced hundreds of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang had been deported after a federal judge temporarily blocked the deportations.