Brown University tells international community to avoid foreign travel

Brown University is advising its international staffers and students to reconsider foreign travel plans after an assistant professor at its medical school was deported this weekend, the latest Trump immigration crackdown action to impact an elite American college.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage international students, staff, faculty and scholars — including U.S. visa holders and permanent residents (or 'green card holders') — to consider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States until more information is available from the U.S. Department of State,” said Russell Carey, Brown's executive vice president for planning and policy, in a campus-wide email.

While the Trump administration has not changed its official guidance around travel bans or restrictions, “during this period of great uncertainty, we feel it's imperative to share reminders with Brown’s international community about travel outside the United States and to provide information about available campus resources," the email said.

The message went out as Brown students are about to head on spring break and after Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor on an H-1B visa, was detained after returning to the U.S. from a trip to Lebanon before being deported.

Alawieh was deported despite a court order from a judge saying she was to stay in the country. The federal government said in a filing that the order from the judge was not communicated to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents before she was already out of the country.

“We continue to seek to learn more about what has happened,” Brown University said, noting Alawieh was an employee of Brown Medicine with a clinical appointment to Brown University.

The Department of Homeland Security said Alawieh was in Lebanon to go to the funeral of “a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree. Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of [Hassan] Nasrallah.”

The deportation follows the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who graduated from Columbia University in December, and another Columbia student who had her student visa revoked by the administration.

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