By Jason Hopkins, Daily Caller News Foundation | March 17, 2025
The Trump administration deported a Lebanese doctor and assistant professor who allegedly attended the funeral of a terrorist leader and carried material sympathetic to other commanders.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed Monday on X that they had carried out the deportation of Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese national previously living and working in the U.S. on an American visa.
“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,” DHS said in a public statement. “Alawieh openly admitted to this to [Customs and Border Protection] officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah.”
She admitted to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials that she attended Nasrallah’s funeral, but said she supported him “from a religious perspective” and not a political one, according to Politico. Law enforcement officials allege they also located several “sympathetic” videos and images of other top Hezbollah leaders in the deleted file of her cell phone, the outlet reported.
“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” the DHS statement continued. “This is commonsense security.”
Alawieh, a 34-year-old kidney transplant doctor and assistant professor at Brown Medicine and Rhode Island Hospital, was prevented from re-entering the United States Thursday when she arrived in Boston at Logan Airport from Lebanon, according to court documents.
Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ordered the Trump administration Friday to not remove Alawieh from the country without time to consider Alawieh’s habeas corpus petition seeking to remain in the U.S. She was ultimately placed on an Air France flight bound for Paris Friday night and flown back to Lebanon before CBP officials received formal notification of the court order, according to The Boston Globe.
“Foreign nationals who promote extremist ideologies or carry terrorist propaganda are inadmissible to the U.S., plain and simple,” Hilton Beckham, CBP’s Assistant Commissioner of Public Affairs, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “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,” Beckham continued. “Anyone found with extremist materials linked to a U.S.-designated terrorist group will be removed.”
Following her removal from the U.S., Sorokin canceled a court hearing that was originally set for Monday. Alawieh’s deportation is the latest in a string of removals and arrests of foreign nationals allegedly sympathetic to terrorist organizations.
DHS arrested and is attempting to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian who spearheaded the campus protests at Columbia University in 2024 that led to in-person classes being canceled, a school-wide commencement ceremony being called off and the arrest of several activists by the New York Police Department. DHS has also arrested another Palestinian national and revoked the visa of an Indian national, both of whom were also allegedly involved in the Columbia University protests.
An Israeli airstrike killed Nasrallah in September 2024, putting an end to the Lebanese cleric’s three-decade reign over Hezbollah, a designated-terrorist organization. President Joe Biden at the time called the strike a “measure of justice” for thousands of Nasrallah’s victims, and noted that he and Hezbollah were “responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror.”
Several major news outlets reporting on Alawieh’s deportation did not appear to mention her attendance of Nasrallah’s funeral, including The New York Times, The New Republic and NBC News.
Neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Justice immediately responded to requests for comment from the DCNF.
Jason Hopkins is an immigration reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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