Donald Trump has deported a Brown University doctor over her alleged links to Hezbollah and the terror group’s longtime leader who was killed last year.
Dr Rasha Alawieh, 47, from Lebanon, was deported from Boston Logan International Airport to Paris on Friday despite having a US visa and a job teaching at the Ivy League college in Rhode Island.
Federal authorities told Politico that border officials moved to expel Alawieh from the country after they found ‘sympathetic photos and videos’ of prominent Hezbollah figures in a deleted items folder on her cell phone.
The physician, who specializes in kidney transplants alongside her professor duties at Brown, also told Customs and Border Protection agents that she attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah while visiting Lebanon.
Alawieh said she followed Nasrallah’s teachings ‘from a religious perspective’ but did not align with him politically, according to an official report by an immigration officer.
‘I have a lot of WhatsApp groups with families and friends who send them,’ the doctor said, according to a transcript filed in court on Monday.
‘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.
‘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.’
