Brown Medicine doctor deported despite federal court order. What we know.
A federal court order that would have halted the immediate deportation of a Rhode Island doctor was issued Friday evening while the doctor's departing plane sat on the tarmac at Boston Logan International Airport, said a family friend and colleague.
But the plane ultimately took off, carrying Dr. Rasha Alawieh out of the country for reasons still unclear to her family, her lawyer and Brown Medicine colleagues such as Dr. Basma Merhi.
"They did not do anything to stop the plane," said Merhi, who was learning details of the event through information relayed by Alawieh family members. "So, clearly, they wanted to deport her regardless of if there was a judge's order or not. She didn't do anything wrong."
Alawieh had been studying and working in the U.S. for the last six years and had been in Rhode Island, working for Brown Medicine in the Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension, since last July.
She worked at Rhode Island Hospital evaluating potential transplant recipients and followed the progress of those patients after their procedures, Dr. George Bayliss, the transplant division's medical director, said Saturday.