Her lawyer and court documents show that Brown University's medical school kidney transplant experts and professors were deported from the United States despite a valid visa and court order temporarily preventing their expulsion.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is a Lebanese citizen who traveled to her home country last month to visit her relatives. She was taken into custody on Thursday when she returned from a trip to the US, according to a court complaint filed by her cousin Yara Shehab.
Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin ordered the government to provide the court with 48 hours of notice before deporting Dr. Alawie. However, she was placed on a flight to Paris, probably on her way to Lebanon.
In the second order filed Sunday morning, the judge said he had reason to believe that U.S. Customs Border Protection intentionally relied on his previous order to give court notice before banishing doctors. He said he followed “common practices in the district over the years” and ordered federal agencies to answer what he called “serious allegations.”
Customs and border security did not respond to questions from the New York Times on Sunday. Lebanon is not included in the draft list of countries the Trump administration is considering banning entry into the United States.
A hearing in Dr. Alawie's case is scheduled for Monday.
Court documents relating to the case were provided by Clare Saunders to the New York Times. Claire Sanders filed a petition to prevent her cousin from being deported, and to request that her cousin be allowed to return to the United States.
Chev's petition names several members of the Trump administration as defendants, including Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Peter Flores's Customs and Border Patrol Committee Chairman.
Dr. Alawie and her employer, Thomas Brown, a lawyer representing Brown Medicine, said the US Consulate issued her an H-1B visa while the doctor was in Lebanon. Brown Medicine, a non-profit medical practice, sponsored visa applications.
Shev's complaints say that when Dr. Alawie landed at Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday, she was detained by customs and border guards and detained at the airport for 36 hours on unknown reasons.
In an affidavit, lawyer Sanders said he went to the airport on Friday to notify customs and border officers before his flight to Paris departs. She said officers didn't take action and didn't give information until the plane took off.
Dr. Alawie graduated from the University of Beirut in the United States in 2015. Three years later, she came to the United States, hosting medical fellowships at Ohio State University and Washington University, and worked as a Yale University resident.
She held a J-1 visa before the new visa was issued. This is a type commonly used by foreign students.
There is a shortage of American doctors working in the Department of Transplantation and Nephrology, Dr. Alawie's speciality. Experts say foreign-born doctors play an important role in this field.
Fear of immigrant status “can cause even more harm to the pipeline,” said Dr. Alawier and Dr. George Baylis, who works at the Brown Medical Kidney Transplant Program.
Her patients included individuals waiting for a transplant and individuals dealing with complex conditions that could occur after the transplant, Dr. Baylis said. He called Dr. Alawie “a very talented, extremely thoughtful doctor.”
“We're all furious,” he added. “And no one knows why this happened.”
In a Sunday letter to members of the university community, Brown's administration advised ahead of spring break to “consider or delay individual travel outside the United States until further information is available from the US State Department.”
Susan C. Beach Contributed research.
