• Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a specialized kidney doctor with Brown Medicine, was deported last week despite a valid visa.
• Customs officials checking her phone at the airport say they found ‘sympathetic’ photos of Hezbollah leaders, leading to her deportation.
• Alawieh’s colleagues say she never talked politics and was an excellent doctor.

BOSTON – The federal government said in court papers filed Monday that a Rhode Island doctor, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, was deported from Logan Airport last week after customs and border officers found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders on her cell phone.

“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,” the documents said.

“As such CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”

What was found on Dr. Alawieh’s cell phone?

According to government filings, Alawieh, 34, of Providence and a kidney transplant doctor for Brown Medicine, told customs and border officials that she followed the religious and spiritual teachings of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “but not his politics.”

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters on Sept. 27, 2024.

The documents said Alawieh had attended a commemoration for Nasrallah during her recent two-week visit back to Lebanon to visit her family. Her friend and colleague Dr. Basma Merhi told The Journal on Friday that Alawieh, who is single, traveled home to see her family after years abroad and missing them.

In an affidavit, a CBP officer reported asking Alawieh about photos found on her phone of Nasrallah and Iranian cleric Ali Khamenei that had been deleted one or two days prior to her return flight to Boston.

Alawieh replied “I’m a Shia Muslim. He’s [Khamenei] a religious figure. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s all religious, spiritual things.”

Alawieh allegedly told the officer she deleted the photos because she didn’t want to give the perception she supported Hezbollah.

The Department of Homeland Security weighed in on the controversy Monday, writing on X:

“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. 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.”

Why was Dr. Rasha Alawieh deported, despite court order?

The court documents were filed prior to a scheduled hearing in U.S. District Court Monday, where a judge ordered authorities to explain why Alawieh, traveling on a valid H-1B visa, had been deported Friday allegedly after his directive that they not do so without giving him 48 hours notice to review the case.

The hearing was originally scheduled for 10 a.m., but was continued to give the government more time to address the allegations. No new hearing date has been set, but CBP has until March 24 to respond, and the judge gave Alawieh’s lawyers until March 31 to respond to the government’s motion to dismiss the complaint.

According to the court documents, the lawyers who filed a petition on Alawieh’s behalf moved to withdraw from the case late Sunday night “stating that ‘as a result of further diligence, they no longer represent the petitioner.’”

The petitioner’s remaining lawyer simultaneously filed a motion asking the court to continue the case to give new lawyers additional time to prepare.

In its initial response, lawyers for the government said it did not receive notice of the court’s order from their legal counsel until after Alawieh “had already departed the United States” and that “at no time would CBP not take a court order seriously or fail to abide by a court’s order.”

Clare A. Saunders, a lawyer for Alawieh, contended in a court submission that she went to Logan Airport and spoke to at least two custom offers after the judge’s order had been issued shortly after 7 p.m.

One of them, identified in her statement only as Chief Kane, “stated that he couldn’t do anything with the order because I was showing him an electronic copy. He asked me to please produce a printed version.”

Alawieh’s Air France flight to Paris was scheduled to leave at 7:45 p.m.

Colleagues say Alawieh is one of only a few nephrologists in RI

Dr. Susie Hu, interim director of Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Transplant & Hypertension, was among Alawieh supporters in court Monday.

She said Alawieh was a high competent doctor, devoted to her patients. As to the photographs found on her phone, Hu said everyone has all kinds of photographs on their phone and these photographs in no way implicated her as a terrorist sympathizer, she said.

Dr. Douglas Shemin, former director of the division, said Alawieh, who had studied and worked in the United States for six years, was hired last July after a national search.

He said she is one of only three trained nephrologists in Rhode Island and desperately needed.

Both Hu and Shemin said they had never heard Alawieh talk about politics and that the division had a diverse staff of doctors.

Alawieh worked at Rhode Island Hospital evaluating potential kidney transplant recipients and followed the progress of those patients after their procedures.

The Division of Kidney Transplant & Hypertension has 1,300 patients enrolled in the program, said Hu.

By Monday afternoon, Hilton Beckham, CBP’s Assistant Commissioner of Public Affairs said in a statement “Foreign nationals who promote extremist ideologies or carry terrorist propaganda are inadmissible to the U.S., plain and simple. A visa does not guarantee entry – CBP has the final authority after conducting rigorous security checks. Officers act swiftly to deny entry to those who glorify terrorist organizations, advocate violence, or openly support terrorist leaders and commemorate their deaths. Anyone found with extremist materials linked to a U.S.-designated terrorist group will be removed.”

This story has been updated with new information.

Contact Tom Mooney at: [email protected]