2 separate cases place the immigration lens on Boston
Updated March 17, 20257:21 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
By
Tovia Smith
Trump administration officials are due in federal court in Boston on Monday to answer what the judge calls "serious" allegations that they disobeyed his order by sending a doctor who was legally working in the U.S. back to Lebanon. The case, which coincides with news of a German-born green card holder being detained, is raising concerns of an immigration crackdown in Boston.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh is a kidney transplant specialist at the Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension at Brown Medicine, an affiliate of Brown University. Alawieh was in the U.S. on an H-1B visa, meant for highly specialized workers. She went to visit family in Lebanon in February, and when she returned to Boston's Logan International Airport, she was detained for 36 hours and had her phone taken from her, according to court documents filed by her cousin, who obtained the court order temporarily barring officials from sending Alawieh back.
Colleagues say Alawieh's lawyers made a frantic call to the airport control tower trying to stop her plane from taking off.
"We got the phone number for the control tower […] on the internet," says George Bayliss, medical director of the transplant program. A lawyer called air traffic controllers imploring them to stop the plane, Bayliss says, but they were told they couldn't. Alawieh's lawyers accuse U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials of "willfully" disobeying the court order by sending her back to Lebanon.
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/nx-s1-5329818/2-cases-boston-focus-immigration-crackdown
