The Department of Homeland Security confirmed it denied reentry for Brown University professor Rasha Alawieh due to her attending a funeral of a designated terrorist in Lebanon.
Alawieh landed in Boston over the weekend where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained her for around 36 hours.
The Department of Justice discovered “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah people on her phone. She also attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
Alawieh claimed she is apolitical and had images on her phone “because those leaders are revered by many Shia Muslims.”
From Politico:
“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.—“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 said, 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 about the sheikh, who was killed last September in an Israeli airstrike on his bunker in the Beirut suburbs.Asked if she supported Nasrallah “in any way,” Alawieh initially denied doing so but later appeared to acknowledge that she supported and admired him “from a religious perspective.”When questioned about photos of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Alawieh said that was typical of Shia Muslims. “It has nothing to do with politics,” the physician added. “It’s a purely religious thing. He’s a very big figure in our community.”Asked why she appeared to have 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 said she probably did know about the U.S. terrorism designation for Hezbollah. “I’m not much into politics, but yes,” she said.
DHS did not deport Alawieh. They denied her reentry, canceled her visa, and could be barred from reentering America for five years.
Outlets brought up the reentry denial happened before a hearing on Monday discussing if the “government defied an order he issued Friday requiring that she not be deported without advance notice to the court.”
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin postponed the hearing, partly because Alawieh changed counsel.
The government has one week “to submit further information about what happened with Alawieh.”
Okay, so CBP detained Alawieh on Thursday for around 36 hours.
On Friday, Alawieh’s cousin filed a habeas corpus petition, which got on the docket at 6:43 PM.
Sorokin’s order to not move Alawieh outside the Massachusetts district at 7:18 PM.
CBP officers escorted Alawieh to a gate around 7:20 PM for a flight to Paris. It departed at 7:43 PM and took off at 7:59 PM.
Clare Saunders, a member of Alawieh’s legal team, said she was at the Boston airport when Sorokin filed the order. She insisted she told a CBP officer about the order.
Once the order went through, Saunders claimed she couldn’t reach a CBP officer to tell them about it and tried calling the number at the CBP office eight times.
When that didn’t work she went to a police kiosk and slammed the emergency button at 7:55 PM.
But by then, as stated above, Alawieh was already on the plane.
CBP offered Sorokin an explanation:
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.
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