Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor at Brown University’s medical school, was deported to Lebanon after attending the funeral of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Alawieh, 34, admitted both her support of Nasrallah and her attendance at the February funeral to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers.
“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” DHS posted on X. “This is commonsense security.”
DHS pointed out that Nasrallah — who was killed by an Israeli air strike in July — was a “brutal terrorist” who was “responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree.”
Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen and doctor, was on a H-1B visa, which is given to foreign workers working in “specialty occupations.” Her visa was issued on March 11, a few days prior to her arrival, according to a federal complaint filed.
Federal agents found photos of Nasrallah and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, on Alawieh’s phone following her return to Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday, CNN reported. She also reportedly acknowledged that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.
When officers asked Alawieh why she deleted the photos two days before her arrival, she said she “did not want to give authorities the perception that she supports Hezbollah and the Ayatollah politically or militarily,” according to court paperwork obtained by WCVB.
“I think if you listen to one of his sermons, you would know what I mean,” Alawieh told the officers. “He is a religious, spiritual person. As I said, he has very high value. His teachings are about spirituality and morality.”
Liora Rez, the executive director of StopAntisemitism, told The Daily Wire that Alawieh should never be allowed near students or patients again.
“StopAntisemitism applauds the Trump administration for not just condemning terror supporters but taking bold action to shield everyday Americans from their dangerous ideology,” Rez said. “This Hezbollah sympathizer should never have been allowed to spread her venom in the U.S., and she must never be permitted near students or patients again.”
Other experts on terrorism questioned how someone like Alawieh was given a job at an American university in the first place, including Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“There is a troubling question that this country is still grappling with: how did our schools become so infiltrated by extremists?” Schanzer asked. “This has been a persistent problem for decades. It took 10/7 and the subsequent chaos on campus to force us to address the problem. But the problem persists.”
Brown University reportedly sent an email on “travel guidance” to members of its community on Sunday.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage international students, staff, faculty and scholars – including US visa holders and permanent residents (or ‘green card holders’) – to consider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States until more information is available from the US Department of State,” the email stated.
A Brown University spokesman told The Daily Wire that “Alawieh is an employee of Brown Medicine, a medical practice that is its own organization and serves its own patients directly, with a clinical appointment to Brown University.” Alawieh worked at the Division of Nephrology at Brown University’s medical school and studied at three American universities since 2018, including Ohio State University, the University of Washington, and Yale University, according to the federal complaint.
“Our client is in Lebanon, and we’re not going to stop fighting to get her back in the US to see her patients, and we’re also going to make sure that the government follows the rule of law,” Stephanie Marzouk, an attorney representing Alawieh’s family in a federal complaint fighting the deportation, told reporters Monday outside a Boston courthouse.
Alawieh was deported before CBP received an order from a judge to keep her in the country for a hearing, CBS News reported.
Schanzer said he rejects any pushback that Alawieh’s deportation is a violation of free speech.
“Such measures will be slammed as violations of free speech, but that is not the case,” he said. “Foreign nationals who are terror supporters do not have a right to live in this country.”
