Lebanese Doctor Deported Despite Valid Visa in Defiance of Court Order

Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a physician in Rhode Island, was detained upon returning from a trip to Lebanon and deported despite having a valid visa and in defiance of a court order to block her deportation.

Alawieh graduated from medical school in 2015. She held fellowships and served residencies at three universities in the USA. When she was detained, she had been studying and working in the USA for six years, and had been at Brown Medicine in the Division of Kidney Disease and Hypertension since July 2024. Her two week trip to Lebanon was her first visit with family in six years.

Her return to the USA on Thursday 13 March 2025 was on the H1-B visa she obtained at the American consulate in Lebanon, valid until mid-2027. The H1-B work visa is reserved for highly educated professionals from abroad in “specialty occupations.”

The day after she was detained, her cousin Yara Chehab, filed a complaint in federal District Court for Massachusetts against the  Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection.

The complaint says authorities unlawfully detained Alawieh “without any justification and without permitting access to their counsel.”

“Despite repeated requests from Dr. Alawieh’s family members and a volunteer attorney, CBP refuses to provide any justification for their detention, refuses to allow the attorneys to talk to Dr. Alawieh, and refuses to provide assurances that Dr. Alawieh will not be deported to Lebanon.”

Later Friday, federal District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order stipulating Alawieh could not leave Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice to the court so the judge could “consider the matter.”

When the order was issued, Alawieh was in an airplane on the tarmac. No effort appeared to be made to hold the flight or take her off the plane. It took off for Paris, where Alawieh was held in detention again to await a Sunday flight to Lebanon.

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