US authorities deport Lebanese Brown University professor for support of Nasrallah, Khamenei

The United States deported Lebanese professor Rasha Alawieh for her support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the late secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

“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,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security posted on 𝕏.

“A visa is a privilege not a right – glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” the post concluded. “This is common sense security.”

The official White House 𝕏 account re-posted the message with a famous photo of U.S. President Donald Trump waving from a McDonald’s drive-thru window.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders on Alawieh's phone, and deported her “due to derogatory information discovered during the inspection process.”

Alawieh has lived in America since 2018 and was working as a doctor and a professor at Brown University before being deported.

She claims her support for Nasrallah is not about politics but comes “from a religious perspective.”

Explaining to CBP officials why she had sympathetic images of Nasrallah in a folder of deleted photos and videos, Alawieh said she has “a lot of WhatsApp groups with families and friends who send them.”

“So I am a Shia Muslim and [Nasrallah] is a religious figure,” she continued. “He has a lot of teachings and he is highly regarded in the Shia community.” She similarly defended images of Khamenei, whom she said is “a very big figure in our community.”

Alawieh is now attempting to work through the U.S. legal system to return to the United States.