BOSTON: US authorities on Monday said they deported a Rhode Island doctor to Lebanon last week after discovering “sympathetic photos and videos” of the former longtime leader of Hezbollah and fighters in her cellphone’s deleted items folder. Dr Rasha Alawieh had also told agents that while in Lebanon she attended the funeral last month of Hezbollah’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom she supported from a “religious perspective” as a Shiite Muslim.

The US Department of Justice provided those details as it sought to assure a federal judge in Boston that US Customs and Border Protection did not willfully disobey an order he issued on Friday that should have halted Alawieh’s immediate removal. The 34-year-old Lebanese citizen, who held an H-1B visa, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from a trip to Lebanon to see family. Her cousin then filed a lawsuit seeking to halt her deportation.

Her expulsion came as Republican US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to sharply restrict border crossings and ramp up immigration arrests. In its first public explanation for her removal, the Justice Department said Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was denied re-entry to the United States based on what CBP found on her phone and statements she made during an airport interview.

According to a transcript of that interview reviewed by Reuters, she told CBP she did not support Hezbollah but had high regard for Nasrallah because of her religion. “I’m not a political person,” she said. “I’m a physician. It’s mainly about faith.” Western governments including the United States designate Hezbollah a terrorist group.

Based on those statements and the discovery of photos on her phone of Nasrallah and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Justice Department said CBP concluded “her true intentions in the United States could not be determined”. “A visa is a privilege not a right - glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “This is commonsense security.” The White House later shared the Homeland Security post with the message “Bye-bye, Rasha”.

A member of Alawieh’s family told AFP that “after she was detained by Homeland Security at Boston airport, she was asked whether she had participated in the funeral of former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah” on Feb 23. Alawieh responded by saying she had joined the many thousands who gathered on the road outside the stadium where the funeral was held, but that she “did not attend the ceremony inside the stadium”, said the family member who did not wish to give their name.

“Pictures were found on her phone of Hezbollah figures” and she was accused of being sympathetic to the group, the family member added. “Her life’s dream is to return to the United States because her whole future will be at risk.”

Stephanie Marzouk, a lawyer for Alawieh’s cousin Yara Chehab, told reporters outside of court on Monday that they were “not going to stop fighting”. Hours later, hundreds of demonstrators, including some of her colleagues from the hospital, gathered on the lawn of the Rhode Island State House in Providence to show their support, carrying signs that said “Her visa was valid”, “She did nothing wrong” and “Stop mass deportation now”.

A spokesperson for Providence-based Brown University said it was seeking to learn more about what happened. Alawieh has been employed by Brown Medicine, a non-profit medical practice affiliated with Brown’s medical school. Following news of Alawieh’s deportation, Brown issued guidance on Sunday advising its international students, staff and faculty to consider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States “out of an abundance of caution”.

In Monday’s filing, the Justice Department also defended CBP officials against claims by the cousin’s legal team that Alawieh was flown out of the country on Friday evening in violation of an order issued by US District Judge Leo Sorokin that day. The judge had issued an order barring Alawieh’s removal from Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice. Yet she was put onto a flight to France that night and is now back in Lebanon.

The judge on Sunday had directed the government to address “serious allegations” that his order was willfully violated ahead of a hearing that had been scheduled for Monday. That hearing was canceled on Monday at the request of the cousin’s lone remaining attorney, after lawyers at the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer representing her pro bono withdrew, citing “further diligence” about the quickly-moving case.

A lawyer with that firm said she had gone to the airport on Friday and shown a CBP officer a copy of Sorokin’s order on her laptop before Alawieh’s Air France flight departed, and another CBP official in a declaration on Monday said he was made aware that occurred before taking Alawieh to the boarding area.

But the Justice Department said the notification needed to be received through standard channels and by the agency’s legal counsel for their review and guidance, which did not happen. “CBP takes court orders seriously and strives to always abide by a court order,” Justice Department attorneys wrote. The Justice Department’s filing was later sealed by Sorokin at the request of a lawyer for the cousin. Reuters reviewed it from a public terminal in the courthouse before access was further restricted. – Agencies