A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
The Trump administration is defending the deportation of a Lebanese doctor who was in the United States. It is one of several recent deportations of people who had been living and working legally in the U.S. Dr. Rasha Alawieh specializes in kidney transplant issues. She was working for a health nonprofit affiliated with Brown University. Olivia Ebertz of Rhode Island member station The Public's Radio has been following the story. Olivia, take us through what happened here.
OLIVIA EBERTZ, BYLINE: Well, so the government deported Dr. Alawieh last week. It was Friday. And then they said that she had attended the funeral of the assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in February. That's while she was home visiting her country of Lebanon. And since then, we haven't been able to get in touch with her to get her response, but I did talk to some of her colleagues. There were a lot of supporters around, and they said that they would be really shocked if she ended up being a terrorist sympathizer. I talked to her boss, Dr. Susie Hu. She's the head of the kidney division at Brown Medicine.
SUSIE HU: She's wonderful and cheerful and optimistic, hardworking, highly competent.
EBERTZ: So Hu and several other doctors who support her told me that she's highly specialized in issues related to kidney transplants, and there are actually only a few other doctors in the entire region who can do what she does.
MART脥NEZ: Yeah, and she was employed by Brown Medicine, which is affiliated with the university. What's been the response from administrators?
EBERTZ: So over the weekend, Brown University sent a campus-wide email that was pretty explicit in warning all of its international staff, faculty and students not to leave the country, especially ahead of spring break. That's because this, at Brown, is one of several cases where people associated with Ivy League schools like Columbia, for instance, have had their residential statuses scrutinized or revoked. This, of course, has caused a lot of tension and fear, especially among the international community at a lot of these campuses.
MART脥NEZ: Sure. I mean, so what's the mood then in Providence?
EBERTZ: So I don't know if you remember this, but last year, Brown University was one of the many schools that had exploded in these pro-Palestinian protests. But after a number of crackdowns nationally and on campus, it's been a really quiet year so far in terms of protesting. But last night, everything with this doctor seems to have sort of mobilized this again, and this time, it was at the Rhode Island State House, which is not very far from Brown. Lots of protesters came out, and lots of them were affiliated with Brown. I talked to Timmons Roberts, who's a sociology professor at Brown, and he said he's thinking about international faculty and students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests all throughout last academic year.
TIMMONS ROBERTS: Students who have protested in the past are worried about their ability to do so in the future. Their freedom of speech really is at stake here, I think.
EBERTZ: So people are really starting to believe that any non-U.S. citizen who's demonstrated pro-Palestinian viewpoints or viewpoints not aligned with the American government could be deported.
MART脥NEZ: So what's next for Dr. Alawieh?
EBERTZ: Dr. Alawieh is suing the federal government to try to get back onto U.S. soil, but I don't think we'll start to see movement with that legal case until next month.
MART脥NEZ: OK, that's Olivia Ebertz of Rhode Island member station The Public's Radio. Olivia, thanks.
EBERTZ: Thanks.
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