DHS Confirms Deportation of Lebanese Professor who Attended Funeral of Hezbollah Terrorist Leader

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed Monday on X that they had carried out the deportation of Lebanese doctor and assistant professor, Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese national who worked in the U.S. on an American visa, for attending the funeral of a terrorist leader.

“Last month, Rasha Alawieh traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah — a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree,” DHS said in a public statement. “Alawieh openly admitted to this to [Customs and Border Protection] officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah.”

She admitted to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials that she attended Nasrallah’s funeral, but said she supported him “from a religious perspective” and not a political one, according to Politico. Law enforcement officials allege they also located several “sympathetic” videos and images of other top Hezbollah leaders in the deleted file of her cell phone, the outlet reported.  

The Daily Caller News Foundation reports Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September 2024, putting an end to the Lebanese cleric’s three-decade reign over Hezbollah, a designated-terrorist organization. President Joe Biden at the time called the strike a “measure of justice” for thousands of Nasrallah’s victims, and noted that he and Hezbollah were “responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror.”

According to the Daily Caller, “several major news outlets reporting on Alawieh’s deportation did not appear to mention her attendance of Nasrallah’s funeral, including The New York Times, The New Republic and NBC News.”

Alawieh, a 34-year-old kidney transplant doctor and assistant professor at Brown Medicine and Rhode Island Hospital, was prevented from re-entering the United States Thursday when she arrived in Boston at Logan Airport from Lebanon, according to court documents, as reported on by the Daily Caller.

“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” the DHS statement continued. “This is commonsense security.”