Deported Ivy League doctor Rasha Alawieh will remain in Lebanon as judge hears arguments over Trump ignoring court order

Brown Medicine Dr. Rasha Alawieh will remain in Lebanon, for now, while a federal judge hears arguments to determine whether Donald Trump’s administration intentionally defied a court order to halt her deportation.

District Judge Leo Sorokin ordered officials with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to court in Boston Monday to explain why the Ivy League doctor was deported last week, apparently in defiance of his court order.

But the judge canceled the hearing as it was set to begin, after government lawyers argued that border agents had not received notice of last Friday’s order until she “had already departed the United States.” Lawyers for Alawieh also asked to postpone a hearing so new attorneys on the case have more time to prepare.

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The government will have until March 24 to address allegations, and attorneys for Alawieh have until March 31 to respond to the government’s motion to dismiss the case, the judge wrote Monday.

Alawieh was detained at Boston’s Logan Airport Thursday after returning from a trip visiting family in Lebanon. CBP officers searched her phone and would not immediately admit her to the U.S., according to court documents.

In court documents defending her removal, government lawyers claimed she attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah while she was in Lebanon and supported him “from a religious perspective.”

They also claimed to have discovered “sympathetic photos and videos” on her phone.

Officers “determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” according to a filing from Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady.

Alawieh’s cousin filed a petition Friday evening seeking her release. The document was entered in the federal court’s docket in Boston at 6:43 p.m.

At 7:18 p.m., Sorokin ordered that Alawieh “shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without providing the Court 48 hours’ advance notice of the move and the reason therefor.”

In a court filing made public Monday, Alawieh’s attorney Clare Saunders said she was not able to reach any border patrol agents to relay the order.

“I yelled loudly and repeatedly through the office trying to get an officer’s attention, in case [the officer] or one of his colleagues were simply at the back, in a portion not visible from the front portion of the office. I received no response,” she wrote. “During the 20 minutes I was waiting at the CBP office, I called the number listed on the handwritten sign approximately [eight] more times.”

She said she pressed an emergency button at a state police kiosk around 7:55 p.m.

Alawieh arrived at the gate for her departure around 7:20 p.m., according to a sworn declaration from CBP official John Wallace.

According to flight records, Alawieh’s plane left the gate around 7:43 p.m. and departed for Paris shortly before 8 p.m. Friday. She arrived in Lebanon Sunday morning.

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Alawieh, who specializes in kidney medicine, was reportedly on a valid H-1B visa she acquired from the American consulate in Lebanon, according to Thomas S. Brown, a lawyer who works on immigration and visa applications and cases for doctors attached to Brown Medicine.

The doctor has studied and worked in the U.S. for six years. She has been working at Rhode Island Hospital for the last year caring for kidney transplant recipients, the transplant division’s medical director Dr. George Bayliss told the Boston Globe.

“I am outraged and upset,” Bayliss said. “The government is acting without regard for the courts.”

Lawyers for the doctor filed a notice of apparent violation after Alawieh was put on a flight to Lebanon. They claimed the government “had actual notice of this court’s order and willfully disobeyed this court’s order.”

Sorokin ordered the Trump administration to answer their claim in court.

“These allegations are supported by a detailed and specific timeline in an under oath affidavit filed by an attorney,” Sorokin wrote in court documents. “The government shall respond to these serious allegations with a legal and factual response setting forth its version of events.”

“In addition, the government shall preserve all of the documents bearing on Dr. Alawieh’s arrival and removal since the issuance of the visa described in the petition including emails and text messages.”

Hilton Beckham, assistant public affairs commissioner for Customs and Border Patrol, said in a statement that “arriving aliens bear the burden of establishing admissibility” to the U.S.

“Our CBP officers adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats, using rigorous screening, vetting, strong law enforcement partnerships, and keen inspectional skills to keep threats out of the country. CBP is committed to protecting the United States from national security threats,” Beckham said.

A rally to protest Alawieh’s deportation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at Rhode Island’s State House lawn.

The actions join an avalanche of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s sweeping measures on immigration, including the deportation of a green card holder in New York and his use of the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly remove targets as part of his anti-immigration agenda. Over the weekend, the White House announced hundreds of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang had been deported after a federal judge temporarily blocked the deportations.