**ISTANBUL**
A kidney transplant specialist at Brown University’s medical school has been deported from the US despite holding a valid visa and a court order temporarily preventing her removal, according to her lawyer and legal filings, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, a Lebanese citizen, had recently traveled to her home country to visit family. Upon her return to the US on Thursday, she was detained, according to a court complaint filed by her cousin, Yara Chehab.
Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts ruled on Friday evening that the government must provide the court with 48 hours' notice before proceeding with her deportation. But despite this order, she was placed on a flight to Paris, and presumably then to Lebanon.
During campaigning last year and since taking office, President Donald Trump vowed a crackdown on immigrants, especially those who have committed crimes, but also said he wanted “very competent people” coming into the country. Deporting Alawieh, a medical professional who was in the US legally, seems to conflict with Trump’s stated policy.
In a second order on Sunday, Judge Sorokin said there was reason to believe US Customs and Border Protection had deliberately ignored his prior directive to notify the court before deporting the doctor. He demanded the agency respond to the “serious allegations.”
On Sunday, Customs and Border Protection did not respond to The New York Times' inquiries on the reasons for Alawieh’s detention and deportation. Lebanon is not part of a draft list of countries the Trump administration is considering for an entry ban to the United States.
A hearing on her case is set for Monday.
Thomas Brown, the attorney representing Alawieh and her employer, said that while she was in Lebanon, the US Consulate granted her an H-1B visa – a visa Trump has praised – which permits highly skilled foreign nationals to live and work in the United States. Brown Medicine, a nonprofit medical practice, had sponsored her visa application.
The complaint said that upon arriving at Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday, Alawieh was detained by Customs and Border Protection officers and held for 36 hours, for reasons that remain unclear.
Clare Saunders, the lawyer, said in a sworn statement that she informed Customs and Border Protection at the airport on Friday about the court order preventing Alawieh’s deportation before her flight to Paris. But officials took no action and remained silent until after the plane had already left.
Alawieh earned her degree from the American University of Beirut in 2015. She later moved to the US, completing medical fellowships at Ohio State and the University of Washington before a residency at Yale. Previously on a J-1 visa, she was recently granted the H-1B visa.
Dr. George Bayliss of Brown Medicine warned that fear over immigration status could “harm the pipeline (of skilled physicians) even more.” He described Alawieh as “a very talented, very thoughtful physician” and said: “We are all outraged, and none of us know why this happened.”
In a Sunday letter, Brown advised foreign students to “consider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States until more information is available from the US Department of State.”
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