Dr. Rasha Alawieh is an Ivy League Lebanese doctor and legal visa holder was deported by the Trump Administration despite a court order. The New Republic accused the Trump administration in an article of openly defying a court order and deporting the Brown University professor and kidney transplant specialist.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh traveled to her native Lebanon to visit relatives last month and was detained on Thursday upon her return to the U.S. A District Court judge in Massachusetts, Leo Sorokin, ordered the government in a Friday evening ruling to give a 48-hour advance notice before deporting Alawieh, but she was put on a flight out of the country the same night anyway. Customs and Border Protection officials basically intentionally defied the initial ruling on purpose, claiming to get the court order two minutes too late.
What if Dr. Rasha Alawieh was an escaped fugitive?
You can bet the Customs and Border Protection official will order the flight to abort the takeoff. Usually in two minutes to the flight, the airplane is still in US airspace and could have easily returned to Logan International Airport in Boston upon government request.
According to Brown University, Dr. Rasha Alawieh earned her medical degree from the American University of Beirut. He had a valid H-1B visa, which is granted to skilled foreign citizens in “specialty occupations.” The good doctor has been working and studying in the US for the last six years prior to her rushed deportation. She was kicked out of the country without any justification and without permitting her access to a legal counsel according to her cousin. America has lost a valuable human asset!
Alawieh’s lawyers filed a motion Saturday saying, “that Customs and Border Patrol received actual notice of the court order and nonetheless thereafter ‘willfully’ disobeyed the order by sending her out of the United States.”
The Judge then issued a second court order on Sunday saying that there was reason to believe Customs and Border Protection defied his initial ruling on purpose saying he followed “common practice in this district as it has been for years” and ordered CBP to respond to “serious allegations” at a court hearing scheduled for Monday.
48 hours after her deportation, the US government stated the real reason for deporting her was she attended the funeral of Lebanese leader Hassan Nasrallah, which took place five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike. During his funeral in Beirut, Dr. Rasha happened to be in Lebanon visiting her parents when hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral of Hezbollah's leader, based on report by Voice of America. So, is attending the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah a crime? Did she support Hezbollah financially? Of course not! Otherwise, Trump will be screaming Bloody Mary!
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a doctor and assistant professor with a visa to work in Rhode Island, has never been charged with or convicted of a criminal offense! Her deportation was cruel, inhumane, racist, and in violation of a court order. This is just the start of an impending dictatorship.
Trump is simply an evil and deranged lunatic. According to India Today, "Trump" reshared on Monday a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) post about the deportation of a Lebanese doctor, adding the phrase "bye-bye Rasha" alongside a photo of himself waving "Bye-bye, Rasha" from a drive-through window. The move came in response to the removal of Dr Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist who had been working in Rhode Island " The post looks sickening, silly, and un-presidential."
Maya Lehrer, an organizer with the party for socialism and liberation, speaks during a protest against the deportation of Assistant Professor of Medicine Dr Rasha Alawieh of Brown University at the State House in Providence.
Dr. Rasha is a legal immigrant, not a criminal, and likely contributes more than any MAGA lout could ever hope to. I should add that Donald Trump does not understand what the 1st. Amendment's right to freedom of speech is all about. On one hand, he called Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organization but then he sends his envoy to wine and dine with Hamas representative in Cairo to negotiate on behalf of Israel. That was betrayal and treason.
Who can forget when in 2019, President Trump secretly invited the Taliban leaders to hang around at Camp David over July 4th weekend. That is the same group who killed US soldiers.
How is that different from Rasha attending the funeral of Nasrallah? Trump's behavior reminds me of the idiom, "Do as I say, not as I do." Trump realizes that his actions may not serve as a good example and he wants all others to follow his words, not their behavior.
After all, Donald J. Trump was the one who defended the Proud Boys and called the white nationalist torchbearers at the University of Virginia “some very fine people.”
While searching for information about Dr. Rasha Alawieh for this article, I ran into a comment on the message board of Yahoo News by a person with the moniker NamVet that reads " Wot ina hail kina name is that?" I responded with, "The name 'Rasha' is of Arabic origin and has multiple meanings. It can be derived from the Arabic word 'rashā' which means 'young gazelle' or 'young deer.' In Arabic culture, the gazelle is often associated with grace, beauty, and agility." Obviously, NamVet and MAGA clowns are not used to other names unless they are Susan, John, or Chris?
Dr. Rasha is entitled to due process of the law, which she was denied and ignored by Trump. In American, we believe in the presumption of innocence, and you are innocent until you are proven guilty. Period! Whenever the Orange Man clown accuses someone of wrongdoing, he has done it himself multiple times. Trump has no respect for the rule of law nor does he have any respect for the Constitution.
If the Executive branch does not follow court orders and Congress takes no action, we have functionally become a dictatorship where the President acts as a judge, jury, and persecutor.
Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.com and ColumbusFreepress.com. He can be reached at elyousseph6@yahoo.com.
"Reach out for those who ignored you, give to the one who deprived, and forgive those who oppressed you." ~ Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him)