Latest news with #RashaAlawieh
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Lawyers challenge customs officials' constitutional authority to deport Brown Medicine kidney doctor
Demonstrators gathered outside of the Rhode Island State House to protest the deportation of Brown Medicine kidney doctor Rasha Alawieh on March 17, 2025 in Providence. (Photo by) Attorneys for Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Brown Medicine kidney doctor deported to her native Lebanon in mid-March, continue to fight to bring her back. An amended complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts Monday contends that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who refused entry to Alawieh at Boston Logan International Airport lacked the constitutional authority to deport her back to Lebanon. The amended complaint, unavailable electronically due to federal court rules limiting public access to in immigration cases, was shared by Alawieh's attorneys Tuesday. 'The Constitution requires that federal officials with significant power over people's lives be appointed by the President or Department heads, to ensure oversight and accountability for their actions,' Golnaz Fakhimi, legal director of Muslim Advocates, which is co-representing Alawieh in the case, said in a statement. 'For Dr. Alawieh, a visibly Muslim woman, the government has thumbed its nose at these Constitutional requirements.' Cambridge, Massachusetts-based immigration law firm Marzouk Law LLC is also representing Alawieh in the deportation case. Alawieh, 34, was stopped by federal immigration authorities at Boston Logan International Airport on March 13 while heading back to Rhode Island after securing a coveted H-1B work visa from the U.S. Embassy in her native Beirut, according to court documents. An emergency petition filed by her cousin a day later sought to stop Alawieh from being deported from the airport, but Alawieh was already on a flight to Paris by the time the judge's emergency order was received by customs officials. Her abrupt deportation drew a mass protest outside the Rhode Island State House days later, but there has been little public outcry in the nearly two months since she was sent back to Lebanon. An initial hearing scheduled before U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin on March 17 was canceled due to changes in Alawieh's legal representation. The updated complaint asks U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin to declare Alawieh's removal order unlawful, reinstate her H-1B work visa, and allow for removal proceedings before a federal immigration judge. 'For Dr. Alawieh — someone with over six-and-a-half years of lawful presence and ties to the United States, seeking to return from brief travel abroad — due process requires the opportunity to be heard by an immigration judge,' her lawyers said in a statement. Ryan Brissette, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, declined to comment on the updated complaint Tuesday, saying the agency does not comment on pending litigation. Airport customs officials found photos of various Hezbollah leaders on Alawieh's phone, according to court documents filed by the federal administration. Excerpts from the filings were shared on social media by U.S. Homeland Security. She also told customs officials when questioned that she attended a funeral event for the Islamist group's late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the administration alleged. The stadium event held in Beirut on Feb. 23 drew hundreds of thousands of attendees. Constitutional authority versus politics Alawieh's lawyers acknowledged but gave little credence to Alawieh's religious and political beliefs as they pertain to her deportation. Instead, the updated complaint centers on whether customs officials had the power to decide whether she was allowed to enter the country or not. 'The claims in this case do not concern the questioning,' the amended complaint states. 'This case turns on whether the role and authority of CPB officers and the procedures they applied to their engagement with Dr. Alawieh violated the requirements of the Constitution.' The three federal customs officers stationed at Logan, two of whom are identified by last name only in the amended complaint, were not directly appointed by the president or Congress. Therefore, they lack authority to deport her — violating the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit states. 'For well over a century the Supreme Court has made clear that the power 'to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions, or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe' is a sovereign responsibility, the 'final determination' of which is entrusted to 'executive officers,'' the complaint states. 'The unchecked devolution of this power to unappointed employees cannot be squared with the Appointments Clause.' The lawsuit also identifies as defendants the anonymous Boston field office director for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Peter Flores, acting commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection; U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Alawieh is among a growing number of immigrants, including some U.S. citizens and other visa holders, who have been detained and deported since Trump took office. Her case drew public interest in part due to her medical training — Alawieh is one of three transplant nephrologists in Rhode Island, providing life-saving care to patients who now have no doctor, the lawsuit contends. Court documents reveal the Lebanese doctor had been working and studying in the United States since 2018. After finishing her residency at the American University of Beirut, Alawieh completed a series of fellowships in nephrology at Ohio State University, University of Washington and, most recently, Yale University. In June 2024, she was offered an assistant professorship through Brown Medicine Inc.'s Division of Nephrology. The nonprofit, physician-led practice, which is affiliated with the Brown University Warren Alpert School of Medicine, offered to sponsor Alawieh's H-1B visa for the job. While her petition for the specialty work visa was approved in June 2024, she was not able to obtain the visa itself from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut until March of this year — the purpose of her visit home. In addition to her job at Brown Medicine, the nonprofit, physician-led practice, which is affiliated with the Brown University Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Alawieh also had a clinical fellowship at Brown University, and consulted on cases out of Rhode Island Hospital, which is owned by Brown University Health. 'Doctors, no matter where they're from, are an integral part of our communities,' Dr. Daniel Walden, a resident physician at Brown University who helped launch a petition to bring Dr. Alawieh back home, said in a statement Tuesday. 'Dr. Alawieh is a compassionate healthcare professional who provides much-needed care to our community. She has stood by her patients, her community, and her colleagues, and it's our turn to stand up for her. We urge the prompt return of Dr. Alawieh so she can continue providing crucial healthcare to Rhode Island.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Egypt Independent
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Canada warns travelers of US border agents' authority to search electronic devices
CNN — The Canadian government is warning citizens visiting the United States that US border officials have the authority to search travelers' electronic devices – including phones, laptops, and tablets – without providing a reason. In a revised travel advisory posted online, it urges Canadians to 'expect scrutiny' when crossing the border and warns that refusing to comply involves risks including device seizure, travel delays, or the denial of entry for non-US citizens. Under US law, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents may demand passwords to unlock devices during inspections. Travelers who refuse the demand risk having their electronics confiscated and may face long delays. The advisory recommends placing devices in airplane mode before crossing to prevent unintended downloads of remote files, which could complicate screenings. The move follows recent incidents involving such searches. Last month, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese assistant professor and physician at Brown University, was deported to Lebanon after US agents at Boston Logan International Airport discovered deleted photos of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on her phone. The existence of the photos was outlined in a court filing obtained by CNN affiliate WCVB. 'In explaining why these multiple photos were deleted by her one to two days before she arrived at Logan Airport, Dr. Alawieh stated that she did not want to give authorities the perception that she supports Hezbollah and the Ayatollah politically or militarily,' the filing reads, per WCVB. While US authorities maintain that device searches are critical for national security, civil liberties groups have long criticized the practice as invasive. The US Supreme Court has upheld the authority of border agents to conduct warrantless device searches, citing the 'border search exception' to the Fourth Amendment.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Canada warns travelers of US border agents' authority to search electronic devices
The Canadian government is warning citizens visiting the United States that US border officials have the authority to search travelers' electronic devices – including phones, laptops, and tablets – without providing a reason. In a revised travel advisory posted online, it urges Canadians to 'expect scrutiny' when crossing the border and warns that refusing to comply involves risks including device seizure, travel delays, or the denial of entry for non-US citizens. Under US law, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents may demand passwords to unlock devices during inspections. Travelers who refuse the demand risk having their electronics confiscated and may face long delays. The advisory recommends placing devices in airplane mode before crossing to prevent unintended downloads of remote files, which could complicate screenings. The move follows recent incidents involving such searches. Last month, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese assistant professor and physician at Brown University, was deported to Lebanon after US agents at Boston Logan International Airport discovered deleted photos of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on her phone. The existence of the photos was outlined in a court filing obtained by CNN affiliate WCVB. 'In explaining why these multiple photos were deleted by her one to two days before she arrived at Logan Airport, Dr. Alawieh stated that she did not want to give authorities the perception that she supports Hezbollah and the Ayatollah politically or militarily,' the filing reads, per WCVB. While US authorities maintain that device searches are critical for national security, civil liberties groups have long criticized the practice as invasive. The US Supreme Court has upheld the authority of border agents to conduct warrantless device searches, citing the 'border search exception' to the Fourth Amendment.
CNN
05-04-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Canada warns travelers that US border agents could search electronic devices
The Canadian government is warning citizens visiting the United States that US border officials have the authority to search travelers' electronic devices – including phones, laptops, and tablets – without providing a reason. In a revised travel advisory posted online, it urges Canadians to 'expect scrutiny' when crossing the border and warns that refusing to comply involves risks including device seizure, travel delays, or the denial of entry for non-US citizens. Under US law, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents may demand passwords to unlock devices during inspections. Travelers who refuse the demand risk having their electronics confiscated and may face long delays. The advisory recommends placing devices in airplane mode before crossing to prevent unintended downloads of remote files, which could complicate screenings. The move follows recent incidents involving such searches. Last month, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese assistant professor and physician at Brown University, was deported to Lebanon after US agents at Boston Logan International Airport discovered deleted photos of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on her phone. The existence of the photos was outlined in a court filing obtained by CNN affiliate WCVB. 'In explaining why these multiple photos were deleted by her one to two days before she arrived at Logan Airport, Dr. Alawieh stated that she did not want to give authorities the perception that she supports Hezbollah and the Ayatollah politically or militarily,' the filing reads, per WCVB. While US authorities maintain that device searches are critical for national security, civil liberties groups have long criticized the practice as invasive. The US Supreme Court has upheld the authority of border agents to conduct warrantless device searches, citing the 'border search exception' to the Fourth Amendment.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What To Do If Border Police Ask To Search Your Phone
Border phone searches are in the news a lot lately. Last month, a French scientist was allegedly blocked from coming to a conference in Houston after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) found statements against President Donald Trump on his phone. A few days later, Brown University doctor Rasha Alawieh was turned away at the airport after CBP allegedly found pro-Hezbollah images on her phone. How does CBP have the power to rummage through phones so easily? After all, ordinary police can't just stop you on the street and search your phone without a warrant. But courts have recognized a border exemption to the Fourth Amendment, allowing the government to conduct routine anti-smuggling searches of travelers. Although some lower courts have weighed in on whether that exemption applies to personal electronic files, there's no definitive ruling yet on phone searches at the border. Until the Supreme Court rules on the issue, CBP officers are mostly limited by the agency's own internal regulations. The regulations allow officers to conduct a "basic search" (flipping through the phone by hand) at their discretion, and require "reasonable suspicion" or a "national security concern" to conduct an "advanced search" with forensic phone hacking software such as Cellebrite. The regulations also restrict officers to searching what's already on the phone, not downloading new data, so phone searches should be conducted in airplane mode or otherwise disconnected from the internet. Of course, an agency pinky-swearing not to violate your rights is not worth much in the way of practical protection. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have both put out guides for protecting electronic privacy at the border. Reason spoke to Sophia Cope, senior staff attorney at the EFF, and Nathan Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, about the nitty gritty of defending your data. There are a few basic tips that people should know but often don't. The U.S. government cannot prevent Americans from reentering the country no matter what. Nor can it compel anyone to give up their passwords. (The cops can force you to open a Face ID or fingerprint lock, though.) And shutting down an iPhone makes it much harder to break into. Other aspects of border privacy require more careful consideration. The bottom line? Prospective travelers "need to have a plan about how to protect their data, and what they are going to do if they're pulled into secondary inspection and asked to unlock their device," Cope says. "You cannot be in secondary inspection like, oh crap, what am I supposed to be doing? That's the most important thing. The second most important point is that one size doesn't fit all." U.S. citizens have the most power to refuse the government's demands for information. CBP can't stop Americans from coming back to their own country, but it can slow them down and physically separate them from their belongings. If you're an American citizen and you refuse to unlock your phone, CBP may hold you for longer—typically no more than a few hours—and seize your phone for a forensic scan. "The government cannot compel you to provide or enter the password, but what they will do is say, if you don't give us the password, we're going to hold your phone until we can get into it ourselves," Wessler says. Visa holders (and travelers from visa-free nationalities) are in a very different boat. CBP agents can decide on the spot whether or not a visitor is really "eligible" to enter the United States, and the agency claims that phone searches are a routine part of that process. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is flipped on its head for visitors; refusing to provide information can itself become a reason to deny you entry. Legal permanent residents are in a gray area. In theory, a valid green card should give you the right to re-enter the country unless an immigration judge takes it away. "Prior to this version of the Trump administration, we would say that generally speaking, green card holders have the same rights as citizens to come back into the country," Cope says, but the Trump administration is now trying to flex its power to revoke green cards for "national security," as in the cases of Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung. Beyond immigration status, certain people might attract more government attention. CBP has used the border search exception to help domestic authorities (including even the Food and Drug Administration) look into people they were already investigating. Travel history in certain countries, especially more frequent or longer trips, may also raise red flags. Professionals who deal with confidential information—such as lawyers, businesspeople, doctors, and journalists—have to consider the security of their work product. The CBP regulations around medical and journalistic data are vague, stating only that they "shall be handled in accordance with any applicable federal law and CBP policy." The regulations similarly state that CBP will treat commercial data "as business confidential information and shall protect that information from unauthorized disclosure." The protections for attorney-client privilege are a little stronger; CBP officers are required to bring in the agency's lawyers before searching potentially privileged data. However, the regulations also call for pretty intense questioning in the process: "The Officer shall seek clarification, if practicable in writing, from the individual asserting this privilege as to specific files, file types, folders, categories of files, attorney or client names, email addresses, phone numbers, or other particulars that may assist CBP in identifying privileged information." If CBP escalates by seizing a device, then the data they can access is a matter of technical security measures. Users can increase the security of their devices by encrypting their hard drives, for example. (The latest version of the iPhone automatically encrypts its hard drive if idled.) Simply shutting down a device may make it harder to break encryption. Unfortunately, the government's abilities are somewhat unclear. "The question that is impossible to answer from the outside," Wessler says, "is at any given moment, where are we in the cat-and-mouse game between Cellebrite and similar companies and Google and Apple and their operating systems?" The best way to protect data is not to have it lying around. After all, "border authorities can only search things that you have on your devices at the border," Wessler adds. The trick is knowing how to make sure that data is actually inaccessible when you're crossing the border, and how to make sure you can get it back once you're done with your journey. A simple solution is the good old burner phone. It might make sense to keep separate travel and home devices, and it's often possible to switch SIM cards between phones, so that both devices can be reached at the same phone number. The EFF guide for border privacy recommends the Google Chromebook as a good travel device, because the laptop is both cheap and designed to store most data on the cloud rather than locally. In general, cloud storage is your friend. Services such as Google Drive and iCloud allow users to easily access their data via the internet without storing that data on the physical device itself. Again, CBP only searches devices that have been disconnected from the internet. It's possible to disconnect from cloud storage and delete local copies of the data before a journey, and then connect to cloud storage and download the data again afterwards. However, there are a few important considerations. Data that is "deleted" from a device may still be there. Alawieh's allegedly incriminating photos, for example, were found in the "Recently Deleted" folder of her phone. (The iPhone keeps deleted photos in the bin for 30 days unless the user manually removes them.) Even clearing out the virtual trash bin "is not a guarantee at all that it will be safe from search, because deleting often means it just goes into unallocated space on the phone," Wessler warns. The EFF guide includes a technical overview of how to securely delete data. The most dramatic measure is to perform a "factory reset" of your phone before crossing the border. However, crossing the border with an empty device can cause CBP agents to think you are hiding something. If you're a citizen, that suspicion may lead to more of a headache. If you're a visitor, CBP may decide to turn you away. Some data may have to cross the border with you. "Maybe you won't have internet access, because you're going to be out on an expedition somewhere, and you really need data on your phone," Cope says. "It's not really reasonable for you to put a bunch of data on the cloud and wait there for two hours for it to download. There's lots of different factors that would implicate how people would decide." On the other hand, making some information available could help to avoid more aggressive scrutiny. For example, journalists might want to delete their conversations with sources while keeping benign family group chats. "As a privacy advocate, I don't like that advice. In an ideal situation, you don't want the government to have access to anything, because even looking at text messages with your mom is a privacy invasion," Cope says. "But it is about a practical decision." Another consideration is what happens on the other side of the journey. Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, which all share intelligence with the U.S. government under the Five Eyes program, have different border privacy policies. Under Australian law, travelers do not have to unlock their phones. Canadian authorities, like U.S. authorities, say they will seize a phone if a traveler refuses to unlock it. New Zealand imposes a $5,000 fine for failing to unlock a phone, and Britain considers refusing to unlock a phone for police to be a counterterrorism offense. American citizens who have done nothing wrong might still hesitate to exercise their rights at the border, simply because of the obstacles that CBP can impose. Sitting in secondary inspection for two hours could cause a traveler to miss a connecting flight, and CBP seizing electronics can impose a major financial burden. Although CBP regulations state that electronics should only be held for five days, the agency has held on to phones for months, according to the ACLU guide. Electronic search and seizure is especially stressful when the device belongs to someone else. Employers should have a plan for dealing with government searches of company data at the border, and "ideally back up their employees…to give people the right to say, this is my work laptop and I am not authorized to give you access because of the proprietary and confidential information on there," Cope says. Finally, the government can simply disobey its own rules. In Alawieh's case, and the case of Venezuelans deported under the Alien Enemies Act, the Trump administration got around court orders by moving too fast for the courts to intervene. "We can say what's legal and what's not, but that doesn't seem to be stopping the current government from trying a lot of outrageous things," Wessler says. The post What To Do If Border Police Ask To Search Your Phone appeared first on
