Who is Rasha Alawieh? All about Brown varsity professor deported from Boston after arriving from Lebanon with H-1B visa

Dr Rasha Alawieh, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brown University, was deported from Boston after arriving from Lebanon with a valid H-1 B visa. She was detained at Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday, and despite a US District Judge's order to halt her deportation, she was sent back to Lebanon on Friday evening. 

Dr Rasha Alawieh was returning to the US after visiting family in Lebanon. On Friday, a family member learned of her planned deportation and alerted her attorneys.

That same day, US District Judge Leo T Sorokin in Massachusetts issued an order preventing Dr Rasha Alawieh's deportation without giving the court 48 hours' notice. However, she was deported on Friday evening. She arrived back in Lebanon Sunday morning, reported The Providence Journal.

She holds a valid H-1B visa, recently issued by the US consulate in Beirut.

While Dr Rasha Alawieh remained detained at Boston airport, her cousin, Yara Chehab, filed a complaint in US District Court, Massachusetts, against officials in the US Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection. 

The complaint stated she was being held “without any justification” or permission to access legal counsel. It also mentioned that her visa was approved by the State Department and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, making the reason for her detention by Customs and Border Protection remains unclear.

Her lawyer, Thomas S Brown, also said, as reported by The Providence Journal, there had been some “wrinkle” with her visa application that had been “relatively easy” to work out “because they did issue the visa, so whatever is going on is not the consequence of the actions at the American consulate, as far as I know."

US District Judge Leo Sorokin will hear the case on Monday. On Sunday, he demanded information on whether US Customs and Border Protection had "willfully" disobeyed his order.

US District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said he had received a "detailed and specific" timeline of the events from an attorney working on Rasha Alawieh's behalf that raised "serious allegations" about whether his order was violated.

Meanwhile, Brown Spokesperson Brian Clark said the University is trying to seek more information about the situation. 

“We need to be careful about sharing information publicly about an individual’s personal circumstances,” he wrote in an email to The Herald.

Here is all you need to know about Rasha Alawieh

• Alawieh, who hails from Lebanon, has been working for Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease and Hypertension since July last year.
• Alawieh graduated from medical school in 2015 and held fellowships and residencies at three US universities on a J-1 student visa.

• When offered the assistant professorship at Brown, she petitioned and was approved for an H-1B visa sponsored by Brown Medicine.
• This month, she visited Lebanon for the first time in six years to visit family.