United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 25-2238
RASHA ALAWIEH,
Petitioner, Appellant,
YARA CHEHAB, as next friend of RASHA ALAWIEH,
Petitioner,
v.
MARKWAYNE MULLIN,* Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS); RODNEY S. SCOTT,* in the official capacity as
Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); TWEEDIE,
Officer of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Boston
Logan International Airport; KANE, Officer of U.S. Customs and
Border Protection at the Boston Logan International Airport;
CAROLINE R. TULLY, Officer of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Boston Logan International Airport; JOHN/JANE DOE, Acting Field Office Director of the Boston Field Office of U.S. Customs
and Border Protection; TODD BLANCHE,* Attorney General, U.S.
Department of Justice,
Respondents, Appellees,
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. Secretary of State; JOHN DOE, Field Director,
CBP, Boston Field Office,
Respondents.
* Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2),
Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin is substituted for former Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Attorney General Todd Blanche is automatically substituted for former Attorney General Pamela J.
Bondi, and Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
Rodney S. Scott is substituted for former Commissioner, U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, Peter R. Flores, as appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Leo T. Sorokin, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Gelpí, Lynch, and Dunlap, Circuit Judges.
Sadaf Hasan, with whom Reem Subei, Muslim Advocates, Mark
Fleming, and National Immigrant Justice Center, were on brief for appellant.
Christina Luo, Cynthia D. Vreeland, and Wilmer Cutler
Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, on brief for American Immigration
Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, Creating Law
Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility, The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, The National
Immigration Law Center, and Van Der Hout LLP as amici curiae
supporting appellant.
Joshua A. Clem, Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,
Civil Division, Office of Immigration Litigation, with whom James J. Walker, Senior Litigation Counsel, Anthony P. Nicastro,
Director, Drew C. Ensign, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, were on brief for
appellees.
October 13, 2026
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Rasha Alawieh appeals from the
district court's dismissal of her amended habeas petition,
including her claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. See
Alawieh v. Tweedie, 808 F. Supp. 3d 205 (D. Mass. 2025). Alawieh,
a Lebanese citizen, alleges that Customs and Border Patrol ("CBP")
officers invalidly issued her an order of expedited removal and
wrongfully cancelled her H-1B visa upon her attempt to reenter the
United States at Boston Logan Airport following her trip to
Lebanon. Because Congress, in the Immigration and Naturalization
Act ("INA"), has barred judicial review of such orders, see 8
U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2), (e)(1), and Alawieh does not fit within the
statutory exception, see id. § 1252(e)(2)(B), (e)(5), we lack
jurisdiction to review her claims. We affirm the district court's
dismissal of Alawieh's petition for habeas corpus for lack of
jurisdiction.
I.
A. Facts
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, born and raised in Lebanon where she
still has family, initially came to the U.S. on an exchange visitor
visa in June 2018. She had received her medical degree from the
American University in Beirut in 2015 and had completed her
residency at the American University in Beirut Medical Center in
2018. After she had completed a series of medical fellowships in
the U.S., Brown University Health hired her and sponsored her for
- 3 -an H-1B visa, which she obtained on June 17, 2024. She practiced
transplant nephrology at Brown University Health and taught at The
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
In February 2025, Alawieh traveled home to Lebanon and
visited her family. She returned on Air France from Beirut, via
Paris, to Boston Logan Airport, arriving on March 13, 2025, at
5:35 AM. CBP officers at Logan Airport inspected her as an
"applicant for admission" to the United States, searched the
contents of her cell phone, and interviewed her while detaining
her overnight during the inspection process.
Before her interview, a CBP officer served her with a
notice stating that she would be asked to provide a sworn statement
and that her apparent inadmissibility may result in her immediate
removal from the U.S., which may bar her from reentry for five
years or longer. Alawieh stated that she understood and freely
and voluntarily agreed to answer the officer's questions.
CBP officers found on her phone photos and videos of
Hassan Nasrallah, the recently deceased leader of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization
by the U.S. since October 8, 1997. They also found photos and
videos of Hezbollah fighters and martyrs, and Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, the leader of Iran at the time. Officers observed that
the deleted photo file contained many of those photos and that the
photos had been deleted one or two days before her arrival, and
- 4 -the interviewing officer asked Alawieh if she had deleted them.
She admitted she had deleted them and stated she did so "[b]ecause
I don't want the perception. But I can't delete everything. But
I know I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm not related to anything
politically or militarily. Many of these things are related to
being a Shia Muslim." The officer then asked if she had deleted
the photos and videos so that they would not be found during
inspection, to which she stated, "[s]o I could have done that and
deleted everything, but I did not."
The CBP officer asked Alawieh if she knew Hezbollah was
designated as a terrorist organization. Alawieh stated that she
did know, denied supporting Hezbollah, and offered no statement
criticizing Hezbollah's terroristic activities. She did
acknowledge that her family in Tyre, Lebanon, were Hezbollah
supporters. Alawieh stated that, as a devout Shia Muslim, she
supported, admired, and followed Nasrallah's religious and
spiritual teachings and was saddened by his death. She stated
that was the reason she and her family attended a commemoration of
Nasrallah's death during her Lebanon trip. The CBP officer asked
Alawieh to explain why she holds Nasrallah "in the highest regards"
and "choose[s] to ignore the terrible acts that he advocates for
Hezbollah to commit." She answered that she is "not a political
person." She made no statement critical of Nasrallah.
- 5 -The CBP officer asked Alawieh about the photos of
Hezbollah martyrs and fighters, which her phone showed Alawieh had
sent to and received from her friends and family. She stated that
the pictures she received were sent for her to determine if the
martyrs and fighters were from her village. When the CBP officer
asked Alawieh if she supported Ayatollah Khamenei, she stated,
"[a]gain, I'm a Shia Muslim. He's a religious figure. It has
nothing to do with politics. It's all religious spiritual
things." Again, she made no statement critical of Khamenei.
The officer also questioned Alawieh about her travels to
Syria in 2006 and, between 2015 to 2018, to Iraq, Iran, and Saudi
Arabia, before her arrival in the U.S. in 2018. She stated her
trips to Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were religious pilgrimages.
At the conclusion of her interview, the CBP officer
determined that Alawieh was "inadmissible under [8 U.S.C.
§ 1182](a)(7)(A)(i)(I) as an immigrant without a valid and
unexpired immigrant document because [her] true intentions could
not be determined due to derogatory information discovered during
the inspection process." The officer asked her if she feared
persecution in Lebanon upon her return, and she stated that she
did not. The officer then served her with a Notice and Order of
Expedited Removal dated March 14, 2025. Alawieh does not dispute
that the document was completed and delivered to her, and that she
signed it. The officer revoked her H-1B visa pursuant to 22 C.F.R.
- 6 -§ 41.122(e)(2), and she became subject to a five-year bar from
applying for readmission under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A)(i). The
officer then arranged for Alawieh's prompt return via Paris to
Lebanon on Air France at 7:43 PM on March 14, 2025, the same
airline and flight pattern she had used to return to Boston.
This appeal turns on whether this court has been deprived
of jurisdiction over Alawieh's amended habeas corpus petition.
The amended petition was filed by Alawieh through new and present
counsel, on May 5, 2025, after her March removal. In that amended
petition, she requested a declaration that the March 14, 2025,
expedited removal order executed by the CBP officer was in
violation of the Appointments Clause and Suspension Clause. She
sought an order requiring respondents to put her into removal
proceedings before an Immigration Judge, an order to give her a
pre-deprivation hearing on immigration detention, a declaration
that the revocation of her H-1B visa violates the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA), an order to reinstate her H-1B visa, and
attorneys' fees. On the government's motion, the district court
dismissed the amended petition, giving rise to this appeal.1
1 The original habeas petition was filed one hour before
Alawieh's removal flight to Lebanon, via Paris, on March 14, 2025, by her cousin on her behalf. Alawieh's attorney was at Logan Airport and notified CBP of the case. The district court promptly issued an order prohibiting Alawieh's transfer outside of the
District of Massachusetts without forty-eight hours' notice.
Alawieh's attorney was unable to notify CBP officers of the court's order before her departure as the officers had already left the
- 7 -As to the amended petition, the district court held that
it lacked jurisdiction over the expedited removal order and its
consequences under the jurisdiction-stripping provisions of the
INA and could not grant the relief sought. Alawieh, 808 F. Supp.
3d at 212-13. In doing so, it cited § 1252(e)(2), which limits
judicial review of expedited removal orders made under
§ 1225(b)(1) to three issues: "(A) whether the petitioner is an
alien, (B) whether the petitioner was ordered removed under such
section, and (C) whether . . . the petitioner is an alien lawfully
admitted for permanent residence, has been admitted as a refugee
. . . or has been granted asylum." Id. at 210 & n.7. Congress
specified that when a court reviews "whether the petitioner was
ordered removed" under § 1252(e)(2)(B), review is limited to
"whether such an order in fact was issued and whether it relates
to the petitioner. There shall be no review of whether the alien
is actually inadmissible or entitled to any relief from removal."
8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(5). The district court determined that
Alawieh's claims do not challenge whether the order was issued or
relates to her, so the claims do not fall within the statutory
service desk to escort Alawieh to her departure gate. The district court found that CBP did not know of the court's order and so was not in violation of the court's order by putting her on the flight. Alawieh, 808 F. Supp. 3d at 208 n.5.
The district court dismissed as moot Alawieh's original
habeas petition, filed before she was ordered removed, seeking to stop the removal and to release her from detention. Id. at 212.
- 8 -exception. Alawieh, 808 F. Supp. 3d at 213. The district court
next rejected Alawieh's argument that the Suspension Clause
preserves the court's jurisdiction over her claims for relief
because such relief "falls outside the scope of the writ as it was
understood when the Constitution was adopted." Id. at 209, 212-13 (quoting Dep't of Homeland Sec. v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. 103,
119 (2020)).
II.
We engage in de novo review of the INA provisions
involved here as an issue of law.2 See Samayoa v. Bondi, 146 F.4th
128, 137 (1st Cir. 2025) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D)).
Alawieh argues that the CBP officers who ordered her
expedited removal were not appointed in accordance with the
Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, so her removal was
void ab initio. She argues that her expedited removal order never
issued since the CBP officers lacked authority to remove her, so
her challenge concerns the issue of whether she was ordered removed
within the scope of § 1252(e)(2)(B).
The government, in response, makes tiered arguments. It
first argues that Alawieh's claims are barred by the
jurisdiction-stripping provisions as to arriving aliens and
Review of a district court's dismissal of a habeas petition
2
is also de novo. McCants v. Alves, 67 F.4th 47, 51 (1st Cir.
2023) (citing Dorisca v. Marchilli, 941 F.3d 12, 17 (1st Cir.
2019)).
- 9 -expedited removal orders under the INA, and that the exception in
§ 1252(e)(2)(B) does not apply. Next, the government argues that
if Alawieh's Appointments Clause challenge is not barred by
§ 1252(e), then it is a systemic challenge which could only have
been brought in the District Court for the District of Columbia
within sixty days of the implementation of the challenged statute,
regulation, or policy directive. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(3).
Third, the government argues that Alawieh's claims fall outside of
the core of habeas corpus, so relief is unavailable through habeas,
citing Thuraissigiam.
We hold that we lack jurisdiction over Alawieh's appeal.3
When Alawieh arrived at Logan Airport she was an "applicant for
admission" and subject to inspection by immigration officers. See
8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1), (3); see also 8 C.F.R. § 235.1(f). Where,
as here, "an immigration officer determines that an alien . . .
who is arriving in the United States . . . is inadmissible under
. . . section 1182(a)(7) of this title, the officer shall order
the alien removed from the United States without further hearing
or review unless the alien indicates either an intention to apply
for asylum . . . or a fear of persecution." 8 U.S.C.
§ 1225(b)(1)(A)(i).
Because we lack jurisdiction, we do not reach the issue of
3
mootness or the merits of Alawieh's Appointments Clause claim.
- 10 -We are barred from reviewing Alawieh's challenge to her
expedited removal order by § 1252(a)(2)(A)(i), which precludes
judicial review of "any individual determination or . . . any other
cause or claim arising from or relating to the implementation or
operation of an order of removal pursuant to section 1225(b)(1),"
unless it fits within one of § 1252(e)(2)'s three narrow exceptions
in habeas cases. Alawieh challenges the validity of her expedited
removal order, not whether it has issued. Only the second
exception, § 1252(e)(2)(B), is relevant here. Nothing in the text
of § 1252(e)(2)(B) gives us jurisdiction over Alawieh's challenge.4
The Third Circuit has also held that § 1252(e)(2)(B)
does not grant jurisdiction to consider the validity of expedited
removal orders. See Osorio-Martinez v. Att'y Gen., 893 F.3d 153,
164-66 (3d Cir. 2018). In Osorio-Martinez, the Third Circuit held
that it lacked jurisdiction under § 1252(e)(2)(B) to consider
4 Alawieh's challenge clearly differs from those in district
court opinions exercising jurisdiction under § 1252(e)(2)(B). For example, in Martinez v. Hyde, No. 25-11613, 2025 WL 1859273 (D.
Mass. June 17, 2025), DHS detained the petitioner for the purpose of effectuating expedited removal, but continued detaining him
without removing him, id. at *1. The district court held that it had jurisdiction to determine whether the petitioner was ordered removed, and when DHS failed to produce evidence that an order of expedited removal existed, the court granted the petition. Id.
at *2. In Dugdale v. U.S. Customs & Border Protection, 88 F.
Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2015), the district court held that it had
jurisdiction under § 1252(e)(2)(B) to determine whether the
expedited removal order "in fact was issued" pursuant to
§ 1252(e)(5) where the order lacked the necessary signature of a CBP supervisor, id. at 6-7.
- 11 -petitioners' argument that petitioners' special immigrant juvenile
status invalidated their removal orders. Id. Congress had
specified in § 1252(e)(5) "that review should only be for whether
an immigration officer issued that piece of paper and whether the
Petitioner is the same person referred to in that order." Id. at
164-65 (quoting Castro v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 835 F.3d
422, 431 (3d Cir. 2016)).5
Alawieh's argument that we have jurisdiction is also not
advanced by her mischaracterization of the district court's
opinion as using Thuraissigiam to disregard circuit precedent,
Leitao v. Reno, 311 F.3d 453 (1st Cir. 2002). Leitao did not
involve the jurisdiction-stripping provisions of § 1252. The
issue presented there was whether the case involving a different
context was moot. Id. at 455. In Leitao, we held that release
from detention does not necessarily moot a habeas petition if the
petitioner still suffers collateral consequences from that
detention, and the court can grant the petitioner relief from those
consequences.6 Id. at 456.
5 Similar to Alawieh, petitioners in D.A.M. v. Barr, 486 F.
Supp. 3d 404 (D.D.C. 2020), argued that their removal, which was ordered pursuant to an invalid regulation, was void ab initio, id. at 419. The court explained that the prior ruling invalidating
the regulation "may well provide a basis to argue petitioners'
removal orders were unlawfully issued," but the court lacked
jurisdiction because, under § 1252(e)(2)(B), "petitioners must
raise a claim that their removal orders were, as a matter of law, not issued." Id. (citation omitted).
6 The parties also dispute whether Alawieh's amended petition
- 12 -It was in response to Alawieh's argument in her amended
petition that the jurisdiction-stripping provisions of the INA
violate the Suspension Clause, that the district court cited to
Thuraissigiam. See Alawieh, 808 F. Supp. 3d at 212-13. In
Thuraissigiam, the Supreme Court held that § 1252's jurisdictional
strip did not violate the Suspension Clause and petitioner's
request for another opportunity to apply for asylum did not fit
under any of the three reviewable issues under § 1252(e)(2).
See 591 U.S. at 133. The Supreme Court there held that the
Suspension Clause does not guarantee habeas jurisdiction outside
of the confines of § 1252(e)(2) beyond what the writ protected at
the time of the founding. Id. at 117. The district court rejected
Alawieh's Suspension Clause argument, applying Thuraissigiam.
Alawieh, 808 F. Supp. 3d at 212-13. Alawieh did not pursue her
Suspension Clause argument on appeal, so we do not address that
issue. Instead, Alawieh now attempts to distinguish her petition
from Thuraissigiam's by arguing her petition falls within the
was mooted by her release from detention. Alawieh argues that the five-year bar on readmission is a collateral consequence that
preserves a live controversy, citing Leitao, 311 F.3d at 455-56. The government agrees that under other circumstances collateral
consequences may preclude mootness in a properly brought habeas
petition, but not in this case. The government distinguishes Leitao from this case because in Leitao, intervening Supreme Court precedent during the petitioner's appeal entitled him to seek the relief that the district court had denied. The jurisdiction-stripping provisions of § 1252 require dismissal of this appeal, and so we do not address or resolve this dispute.
- 13 -confines of § 1252(e)(2)(B), an argument which we have rejected
for the reasons stated above.
We affirm the district court's dismissal of Alawieh's
petition for habeas corpus for lack of jurisdiction.7
7 See Ishak v. Gonzales, 422 F.3d 22, 33 (1st Cir. 2005)
(affirming district court's dismissal of habeas petition for lack of jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252); see also Bouarfa v.
Mayorkas, 604 U.S. 6, 19 (2024) (same).
- 14 -