March 17 (UPI) — U.S. Customs and Border officials are set to appear in federal court Monday after allegedly ignoring a judge’s order not to deport a Rhode Island doctor who was detained last week.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen and kidney doctor at Brown Medicine landed at Logan Airport in Boston Thursday after visiting family in Lebanon and was detained there by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, officials.
She was also sent to France with a flight scheduled to take her to Lebanon, defying a court order to keep her detained instead of sending her outside of the country.
U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order on Sunday calling for a court hearing on Monday at 10 a.m. for CBP to explain its decision to send her back to Lebanon, wher she arrived Sunday morning.
Alawieh’s cousin Yara Chehab filed a suit Friday naming U.S. Department Of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kristi Noem, Customs and Border Commissioner Peter Flores and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants, alleging that “CBP refuses to provide any justification for their detention, refuses to allow the attorneys to talk to Dr. Alawieh, and refuses to provide assurances that Dr. Alawieh will not be deported.”
Alawieh holds a valid H-1B visa, and Sorokin issued an order Friday that she was not to be deported “without providing the Court 48 hours’ advance notice of the move and the reason therefor.”
The complaint said that Brown University sponsored her visa after she was offered an assistant professorship.
Sorokin put forth a filing Sunday that CBP “received actual notice of the Court’s Order described above and nonetheless thereafter ‘willfully’ disobeyed the Order by sending her out of the United States.”
Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs for CBP, issued a statement on the decision Sunday.
“Arriving aliens bear the burden of establishing admissibility to the United States,” Beckham said. “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.”
