Overview

• Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was deported to Lebanon despite holding a valid H-1B visa issued days before her travel.
• A federal judge had ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to provide 48 hours’ notice before deporting her, but she was placed on a flight to Paris the same evening the order was issued.
• CBP cited national security concerns, pointing to Dr. Alawieh’s attendance at a Hezbollah leader’s funeral and alleged sympathetic materials found on her phone as grounds for her inadmissibility.
• Her deportation has disrupted Brown Medicine’s kidney transplant program, where she was one of only three specialists in Rhode Island, affecting hundreds of patients awaiting care.
• The case has prompted widespread public protests, institutional concern from Brown University, and legal challenges accusing the government of willfully defying judicial orders.