Providence, Rhode Island — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the deportation of a Lebanese doctor who was deported from Boston’s Logan Airport earlier this year despite having a visa after immigration officials said she upheld a decision to deport her. Leader of Hezbollah He attended his funeral.
In March, Dr. Rasha Alawiyaa kidney transplant specialist at Brown Medicine Hospital, was detained for at least 36 hours at the Boston airport after arriving from Lebanon. The doctor was traveling with her family, and while she was traveling, she attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah.
Internal Security officials say they reviewed her phone while Alawiyah was in detention and found photos of “Hezbollah fighters and martyrs.” Alawiya responded that she was only interested in Nasrallah’s spiritual beliefs, but stressed that some members of her family support his policies.
Alawiya’s case quickly received national attention as her family launched a legal campaign to keep her in the United States. At one point, a federal judge ordered that she not be deported until a hearing could be held, but lawyers said customs officials did not receive any response until after Alawiya was returned to Lebanon.
Late last month, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin dismissed Alavia’s case, arguing that he did not have the authority to provide the assistance she requested — in particular, saying he could not remove a five-year ban on returning to the United States as a result of her deportation.
“This court simply cannot issue in habeas corpus the orders that Alaviya hopes to obtain,” Sorokin wrote on October 31.
Gulnaz Fakhimi, an Alevi lawyer and legal director of Muslim Lawyers, said her organization is evaluating the court’s decision and examining all options.
“Unchecked abuse of the department’s authority means that vulnerable people will continue to not receive highly specialized, life-saving care from Dr. Alawiyah, who was one of only three kidney transplant doctors in Rhode Island,” she said in a statement. “The administration’s actions against her reflect its broader goal of trying to eliminate the diversity that defines American society.”
Sorokin pointed to a 2020 US Congress and Supreme Court decision that upheld a speedy deportation process and significantly restricted federal district court judges from intervening.
“The five-year barring of her return is not a consequence of the detention she originally objected to as unlawful,” the judge wrote. “Rather, it is a feature of the expedited removal order issued during that detention — an order that led, ultimately, to her release from detention in the cabin of an airplane departing the United States.”
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This story has been corrected to indicate that Alawiyah practiced medicine at Brown University, not Brown University.