A Brown University professor and doctor was deported over the weekend despite having the valid documentation.
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A Brown University professor and doctor was deported last week despite having valid documentation to be in the U.S. and now a federal judge is examining the case.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh is a Lebanese citizen who was living in Rhode Island. She holds an H-1B visa last year, which is a document that allows U.S. companies to hire foreign-born workers with special skills. According to Brown University, she is an employee of Brown Medicine, which is its own private practice affiliated with the school. She also has a clinical appointment to Brown University.
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"We are seeking to learn more about what has happened, but we need to be careful about sharing information publicly about any individual's personal circumstances," a school spokesperson wrote in a statement.
According to NBC News, Alawieh entered the U.S. on a J-1 visa in 2018, then attended programs at Ohio State University, the University of Washington and the Yale Waterbury Internal Medicine Program before she started her assistant professorship at Brown.
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According to court documents, last week when she was flying from Lebanon back to America after a visit home, she was detained at Logan International Airport.
The documents state she was detained for hours without the ability to contact anyone, then sent back to Lebanon. As NBC News reports, she was expelled from the country despite an order by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ordering that she should not be removed without 48 hours’ notice and a reason in order to “give the Court time to consider the matter.”
A court petition filed on her behalf on Friday claims that Customs and Border Protection had detained her “without any justification,” during which Alawieh had been uncontactable and unable to access legal counsel.
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Lawyers for the government explained in a court filing Monday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Logan did not receive notice of the order until she “had already departed the United States,” the judge noted. They asked that the petition be dismissed.
A federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments in the case in U.S. District Court in Boston on Monday, but a motion to delay has postponed that hearing.
A lawyer for Alawieh declined to comment on camera.
“My colleagues and I are outraged over Dr Alawieh’s deportation. She is a valued colleague and we hope for justice and her return to Rhode Island,” said George Bayliss, an associate professor of medicine at Brown University.
U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, a Democrat, said in a statement over the weekend that is "committed to getting answers from the Department of Homeland Security to provide Dr. Alawieh, her family, her colleagues, and our community the clarity we all deserve.”
A rally was planned to support her Monday night at the Rhode Island statehouse.
In a separate case, a judge has set a hearing to determine if the Trump administration defied a court order to pause the deportations of hundreds of immigrants under an 18th-century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members. This comes as tensions continue over the president's immigration policies.
