A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Rasha Alawieh’s appeal on October 13, 2026, ruling that it lacked jurisdiction to review her challenge to deportation. The decision affirmed dismissal of her lawsuit, not the substantive legality of her removal.
The case, Alawieh v. Mullin, names Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin among the respondents. The panel’s ruling addressed the court’s authority to hear the claims. It did not determine whether the removal order or cancellation of her visa was lawful.
“We hold that we lack jurisdiction over Alawieh's appeal,” the court wrote. The ruling leaves the district court’s dismissal in place.
The panel ruled on Alawieh’s appeal, not on removal cases generally
The panel treated Alawieh as an “applicant for admission” when she arrived at Boston Logan. Under the statute governing expedited removal, immigration officers decide whether certain arriving noncitizens are inadmissible without further hearing or review, unless they express an intent to seek asylum or fear persecution.
The record says Alawieh told officers she did not fear persecution in Lebanon. That statement was part of the inspection record, not a separate appellate finding on the legality of her removal.
The court’s decision concerns her appeal alone. It did not order her return, restore her H-1B visa or rule on the validity of the expedited removal order. She remains subject to a five-year bar on readmission tied to that order, but the appellate panel did not decide whether the order was legally sound.
The judges found no jurisdiction to review the expedited order
Senior Judge Sandra L. Lynch wrote the opinion, joined by Circuit Judges Gelpí and Dunlap. Lynch said Congress had restricted judicial review of such orders and that Alawieh did not qualify for an exception.
“Because Congress, in the Immigration and Naturalization Act, has barred judicial review of such orders, and Alawieh does not fit within the statutory exception, we lack jurisdiction to review her claims.”
The panel viewed her as an arriving applicant subject to inspection by Customs and Border Protection officers. The statute permits an officer to make an inadmissibility determination without a further hearing or review unless the person indicates an intention to apply for asylum or a fear of persecution.
Alawieh’s amended petition, filed May 5, 2025, argued that the expedited removal process violated the Appointments Clause and the Suspension Clause. She asked for proceedings before an immigration judge, reinstatement of her H-1B visa and an order returning her to Rhode Island.
Her lawyers said the Constitution requires officials with significant authority over people’s lives to be appointed by the president or a department head. They characterized the Logan officers’ power as unilateral and not subject to administrative review. In a September 2025 filing, they argued that the Supreme Court’s summer ruling in Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, which concerned appointments of task force members, supported their Appointments Clause argument.
The panel did not reach those questions. It reasoned that an allegation of improper appointments did not turn an order that had been issued into one that had never existed. The decision did not resolve whether the officers’ appointments were constitutional or whether the agency’s removal and visa actions were substantively lawful.
The removal followed a phone search at Boston Logan
Alawieh, 34, was born and raised in Lebanon. She came to the United States in 2018 on an exchange visitor visa after earning her medical degree from the American University in Beirut, completed fellowships at three U.S. universities and joined Brown’s Alpert Medical School. Brown Medicine sponsored her H-1B visa, issued in June 2024.
She traveled to Lebanon in February 2025 to visit family. On March 13, 2025, she returned from Beirut on an Air France flight and CBP officers searched her phone at Logan. Some accounts date her arrival to March 14.
Officers found photos and videos of Hassan Nasrallah, the late Hezbollah leader, Hezbollah “fighters and martyrs,” and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They also found recently deleted images. Alawieh acknowledged deleting them, saying she did not want “any perception.”
Asked whether she knew Hezbollah had been designated a terrorist organization since 1997, she said she did. She denied supporting the group but offered no criticism of it, according to the ruling. She told officers that, as a devout Shia Muslim, she admired Nasrallah’s religious and spiritual teachings and had attended a commemoration of his death during her trip.
CBP found her inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I), stating that her “true intentions in the United States could not be determined.” She signed an expedited removal order. CBP revoked her H-1B visa under 22 C.F.R. § 41.122(e)(2), and she was held for at least 36 hours.
A habeas petition was filed about an hour before her flight. The district court had ordered 48 hours’ notice before removal. CBP official John Wallace told the court the agency received that order only after the Air France flight to Paris had departed: “Due to the extremely close timing. CBP did not receive the court's orders until after the flight departed the United States.” The district court later found CBP had not violated its order.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady wrote in a filing that “CBP questioned Dr Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined.” That was the government’s stated basis for the inadmissibility decision; the appeals panel did not rule on that determination’s merits.
Sorokin dismissed the habeas case before the appeal
U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin dismissed the case on October 31, 2025, in the District of Massachusetts. He said he could not grant the requested relief, including lifting the five-year reentry bar.
“The bar is not a consequence of the detention she originally challenged as unlawful. It is a feature of the expedited removal order issued during that detention,” Sorokin wrote. He also said, “This Court simply cannot issue in this habeas action the orders Alawieh hopes to obtain.”
Sorokin found the habeas claim moot because Alawieh was no longer in custody. He also cited Congress and a 2020 Supreme Court decision upholding fast-track deportation and limiting district court intervention. Her cousin, Yara Chehab, had filed the original petition on her behalf as next friend. Alawieh appealed Sorokin’s order in February 2026.
Golnaz Fakhimi, Alawieh’s attorney and legal director of Muslim Advocates, said the organization was assessing the ruling and “considering all options.” Muslim Advocates worked with Marzouk Law on the case.
Fakhimi said the administration’s actions would deprive patients of specialized care from Alawieh, who worked at Rhode Island Hospital and was one of only three transplant nephrologists in Rhode Island before her removal. She also said the actions reflected what she described as a broader effort to eliminate diversity in American society.
This article provides general information and is not legal advice. Consult a qualified immigration attorney about your specific case.
