Federal authorities have cancelled a Lebanese physician’s visa after discovering that she has pro-terrorist sympathies and traveled to Lebanon to attend the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, last month. The terror leader was killed last September during an Israeli airstrike on his bunker in a Beirut suburb.
The US State Department, along with more than 60 other countries or organizations have designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist group.
Upon her return to the U.S. Thursday, Customs And Border Protection (CBP) officers questioned Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, at the Boston airport, and searched her phone, Politico reported. Alawieh, who specializes in kidney transplants and is a professor at Brown University, was reportedly denied reentry Friday because officers found “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah terrorists in a deleted items folder on her cell phone.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement Monday reminding visa holders that their welcome in the United States is “a privilege not a right.”
“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,” the DHS X account posted on Monday. “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.”
The Trump White House appeared to celebrate the move on X, Monday.
Alawieh reportedly told CBP officers that she followed Nasrallah’s teachings “from a religious perspective” but not a political one.
“CBP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady wrote in a court filing Monday.
A federal judge issued an order Friday requiring that she not be deported without advance notice to the court.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin scheduled a hearing for Monday morning to determine whether the government had defied his order. Sorokin postponed the hearing just before it was to begin and he gave the government another week to submit further information about what happened.
CBP official John Wallace said in a sworn declaration filed with the court that CBP officials at Boston’s Logan Airport hadn’t received formal notification of the court order through official channels before Alawieh was put on an Air France flight bound for Paris Friday night.
“At no time, would CBP not take a court order seriously or fail to abide by a court’s order,” Wallace wrote, while adding that the agency only acts on orders it gets from its legal counsel or is able to verify with that counsel.
“Due to the extremely close timing between the issuance of the court order in this case and the boarding time of [the Air France flight] CBP did not receive the court’s orders until after the flight departed the United States,” Wallace added.
Alawieh has lived in the United States since 2018, when she came on a student visa to take part in a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She later attended a similar program at the University of Washington and an internal medicine program at Yale.
“So I have a lot of Whatsapp groups with families and friends who send them. So I am a Shia Muslim and he is a religious figure. He has a lot of teachings and he is highly regarded in the Shia community,” Alawieh told CBF officers at the airport, according to the transcript filed in court Monday.
“I think if you listen to one of his sermons you would know what I mean. He is a religious, spiritual person, as I said, he has very high value. His teachings are about spirituality and morality,” she added in defense of the Hezbollah leader, who had called for the elimination of Israel
When asked whether she had ever supported Nasrallah, Alawieh reportedly said no initially, “but later appeared to acknowledge that she supported and admired him ‘from a religious perspective.’”
Alawieh also had photos of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on her phone, which she claimed was “typical of Shia Muslims.”
“It has nothing to do with politics,” she insisted. “It’s a purely religious thing. He’s a very big figure in our community.”
When asked why she allegedly deleted some photos a day or two before arriving in the U.S., Alawieh replied, “Because I don’t want the perception. But I can’t delete everything. But I know I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not related to anything politically or militarily.”
Alawieh also claimed not to know about the U.S. terrorism designation for Hezbollah. “I’m not much into politics, but yes,” she said.
After the interview, CBP officials informed Alawieh she was being denied entry, her visa was being canceled and she would be “subject to a five-year bar on returning to the U.S,” according to Politico.
Justice Department lawyers said the decision was “due to derogatory information discovered during the inspection process.”
Her cousin reportedly filed a habeas corpus petition seeking her release last Friday evening.
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