Federal authorities said the Brown University assistant professor and doctor deported to Lebanon despite having an H-1B visa expressed support and attended the funeral of a slain Hezbollah leader responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.
“Last month, Rasha Alawieh traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah – a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah.”
“A visa is a privilege, not a right – glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” McLaughlin said.
Rasha Alawieh, a 34-year-old physician specializing in kidney transplants who was most recently living in Rhode Island, was detained at Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday while coming back from a trip to Lebanon.
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Tens of thousands of mourners vowed support for Hezbollah at the Beirut funeral of slain leader Hassan Nasrallah on Feb. 23, 2025. (Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images)
Alawieh was questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and allegedly told federal agents she had attended the funeral of Nasrallah, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady reportedly wrote in a new filing Monday.
The filing has since been placed under seal, but Politico and The Providence Journal were able to report its contents beforehand.
Alawieh allegedly stated she supported Nasrallah “from a religious perspective,” but not politically, according to Politico.
Federal authorities said they also conducted a search of Alawieh’s phone and found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders, as well as materials showing “various other Hezbollah militants” in a deleted folder.
“With the discovery of these photographs and videos, CBP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” DOJ lawyers wrote, according to the Journal. “As such, CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”
Pedestrians make their way past a building housing the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Jan. 30, 2019, in Providence, Rhode Island. (AP Photo/Jennifer McDermott, File)
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, on Friday ordered an in-person hearing regarding Alawieh’s case to take place on Monday.
Sorokin ordered that Alawieh not be deported for at least 48 hours without giving the court 48 hours notice. Alawieh was reportedly placed on a flight to Paris anyway and then arrived back in Lebanon over the weekend.
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Sorokin reportedly postponed Monday’s hearing just before it was scheduled to start and rescheduled it for March 25 to give the DOJ more time to respond to allegations federal agents ignored a court order in sending Alawieh out of the U.S.
CBP official John Wallace said in an affidavit that federal agents were not notified of the court order through the proper channels before Alawieh was placed on an Air France flight Friday, Politico reported.
Alawieh first came to the United States in 2018 to pursue a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She went on to complete a fellowship at the University of Washington and an internal medicine program at Yale.
Mourners attend the funeral of slain Hezbollah leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine on the outskirts of Beirut on Feb. 23, 2025. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Her cousin, Yara Chehab, attempted to intervene in court last week while Alawieh had been detained at the airport for over 36 hours. Her federal lawsuit says Brown Medicine sponsored Alawieh for an H-1B visa to do the work of an assistant professor.
Alawieh was issued an H-1B visa on March 11 to pursue an assistant professor of medicine and clinician educator role at Brown University. The lawsuit says she worked for Brown prior to the issuance of her current H-1B visa.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Brown University, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, the Justice Department and Chehab’s attorney but did not immediately hear back.
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