Brown Medicine doctor deported despite federal court order. What we know.
Tom Mooney Providence Journal
- A federal court order required a 48-hour notice before a Rhode Island doctor could be deported.
- Dr. Rasha Alawieh was prevented from reentering the United States on Thursday after she returned from a visit with family in Lebanon.
A federal court order that would have halted the immediate
deportation of a Rhode Island doctor was issued Friday evening while the doctor’s departing plane sat on the tarmac at Boston Logan International Airport, said a family friend and colleague.
But the plane ultimately took off, carrying
Dr. Rasha Alawieh out of the country for reasons still unclear to her family, her lawyer and Brown Medicine colleagues such as
Dr. Basma Merhi.
“They did not do anything to stop the plane,” said Merhi, who was learning details of the event through information relayed by Alawieh family members. “So, clearly, they wanted to deport her regardless of if there was a judge’s order or not. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
Alawieh had been studying and working in the U.S. for the last six years and had been in Rhode Island, working for
Brown Medicine in the Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension, since last July.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney doctor with Brown Medicine.
Provided by Dr. Basma Merhi
She worked at Rhode Island Hospital evaluating potential transplant recipients and followed the progress of those patients after their procedures, Dr. George Bayliss, the transplant division’s medical director, said Saturday.
Detained at Logan upon return from family visit in Lebanon
Customs officials at Logan detained Alawieh, 34, on Thursday as she was returning from a two-week trip home to Lebanon to visit family, said Merhi and lawyer Thomas S. Brown, who handles immigration and visa issues for doctors affiliated with Brown Medicine.
Brown said Alawieh was returning to the U.S. on an
H-1B visa she had recently acquired at the American consulate in Lebanon.
The H-1B is a temporary visa category that allows employers to petition for highly educated foreign professionals to work in “specialty occupations.”
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Freedom to Read launcsponse to book banning efforts in Rhode Island and beyond at the RI State House Library.
The visa allowed her to be lawfully in the country through the middle of 2027, said Brown.
Brown said Friday, as Alawieh was being detained at the airport, that there had been some “wrinkle” with her visa application that had been “relatively easy” to work out “because they did issue the visa, so whatever is going on is not the consequence of the actions at the American consulate, as far as I know."
“She was clear to return. She had the visa, she had the right passport. Everything was looking good.”
Alawieh not allowed access to an attorney
On Friday, Alawieh's friends and family moved quickly to attempt to prevent her deportation.
Her cousin, Yara Chehab,
filed a complaint in U.S. District Court, Massachusetts against officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
In the complaint, Chehab says federal authorities had unlawfully detained her cousin “without any justification and without permitting [her] access to their counsel.”
The complaint notes that Alawieh had graduated from medical school in 2015 and held fellowships and residencies at three U.S. universities.
“Despite repeated requests from Dr. Alawieh’s family members and a volunteer attorney, CBP refuses to provide any justification for their detention, refuses to allow the attorneys to talk to Dr. Alawieh, and refuses to provide assurances that Dr. Alawieh will not be deported to Lebanon.”
What the judge's order said
Later Friday, U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh could not leave Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice to give the court time to “consider the matter.”
It’s unclear if the order reached immigration officials in time. Ryan Brissette, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, did not return an email on Saturday morning.
Bayliss, head of the transplant division, said he is outraged at what happened.
“I'm outraged at it for my colleague, and I'm outraged at it as a citizen,” he said. “This is government action without due process and ignoring the courts. So that strikes me as capricious and arbitrary.”
Merhi said Saturday that Alawieh had been given a two-minute phone call when her plane landed in Paris. She called her mother and told her not to worry. She is being held there at the airport in a detention facility until she flies on to Lebanon on Sunday, she said.
“They are treating her like a terrorist,” said Merhi. “It is ridiculous. She is an accomplished doctor, she is treating patients, who is treated like a criminal. And she is following all the rules. She is not doing anything wrong. And her Visa is valid.”
