Judge dismisses lawsuit over deportation of Brown Medicine doctor

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the deportation of a doctor from Lebanon who was deported from Boston's Logan Airport earlier this year despite having a visa after immigration officials said she supported a Hezbollah leader and attended his funeral.

In March, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist at Brown Medicine, was detained for at least 36 hours in Boston's airport after arriving from Lebanon. The doctor was traveling with her family, and while traveling, she attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah.

Homeland Security officials say they reviewed her phone while Alawieh was detained and found photos of “Hezbollah fighters and martyrs." Alawieh responded that she was only interested in Nasrallah's spiritual beliefs, but she confirmed that some of her family supported his politics.

Alawieh's case quickly gained national attention as her family launched a legal campaign to keep her in the U.S. At one point, a federal judge ordered that she not be removed until a hearing could be held, but lawyers have said customs officials did not get word until after Alawieh was sent back to Lebanon.

Late last month, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin dismissed Alawieh's case, arguing that he did not have the authority to provide relief she sought — in particular, saying that he could not remove a five-year ban on returning to the U.S. as a result of her deportation.

“This Court simply cannot issue in this habeas action the orders Alawieh hopes to obtain,” Sorokin wrote on Oct. 31.

Golnaz Fakhimi, Alawieh's attorney and legal director of Muslim Advocates, said her organization was assessing the court's decision and considering all options.

“Unchecked abuse of the administration’s power means that vulnerable people will continue to go without highly specialized, life-saving care from Dr. Alawieh, who’d been one of only three transplant nephrologists 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 Congress and a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2020 that upheld a fast-track deportation process and significantly limited federal district court judges from intervening.

“The five-year bar on her return is not a consequence of the detention she originally challenged as unlawful. It is a feature of the expedited removal order issued during that detention — an order which, ultimately, led to her release from detention into the cabin of a plane leaving the United States,” the judge wrote.

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This story has been corrected to state that Alawieh practiced at Brown Medicine, not Brown University.