Rantz: Seattle Times whitewashes past of former UW fellow deported for attending terrorists’ funeral
Mar 26, 2025, 5:01 AM | Updated: 9:22 am

Providence, RI - March 17: Over 100 people attend a protest in support of Rasha Alawieh in front of the Rhode Island State House. Alawieh, a Rhode Island doctor and professor at Brown University, was deported to Lebanon after being detained in Boston. (Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
(Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Seattle Times reporter David Gutman glowingly of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese doctor and former University of Washington fellow who was deported by the Trump administration despite having a “valid visa to live and work in the United States.” Gutman quoted her former colleagues calling her “helpful, kind and extremely professional.”
According to Gutman, Alawieh was detained on the way home from Lebanon “to visit family.” But it was more than that.
The Seattle Times聽wanted you to feel bad for Alawieh and view her as a victim of Trump as he “seeks to harden immigration policies and enforcement.” But you shouldn’t feel bad, based on the reason the government gave for her long overdue deportation: they say she’s a Hezbollah supporter.
Burying the lede seems pretty intentional
It took ten paragraphs of glowing characterizations of Alawieh before Gutman notes that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted that the former professor traveled to Lebanon to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, who led terrorist, militant group Hezbollah and was “an archenemy of Israel, cementing alliances with Shiite religious leaders in Iran and Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas,” according to the .
DHS noted that Alawieh “openly admitted” to supporting Nasrallah and attending his funeral. The Department of Justice noted that they even found “‘sympathetic photos and videos’ of prominent Hezbollah figures in a deleted items folder on her cell phone,” per聽.听She reportedly deleted the photos “a day or two” before arriving in the United States from her trip.
“Asked if she supported Nasrallah ‘in any way,’ Alawieh initially denied doing so but later appeared to acknowledge that she supported and admired him ‘from a religious perspective,'” Politico noted.
Former fellow, Rasha Alawieh, was deported after attending the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, a terrorist group linked to the 1983 bombing that k*lled 241 American service personnel. omitted this, misleadingly reporting only that she鈥
鈥 UW_JewishAlumni (@UW_JewishAlumni)
Deserving deportation
Most normal people don’t attend funerals for religious leaders who are murderous, antisemitic terrorist thugs. It’s odd that this key detail鈥攖he聽补肠迟耻补濒听reason the federal government provides for deportation鈥攚as buried. But both the city and the UW campus are filled with left-wing partisans happy to whitewash these kinds of stories in an effort to attack President Donald Trump’s very popular policy to deport people who don’t belong here and shouldn’t be welcome.
鈥淎 visa is a privilege, not a right 鈥 glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,鈥 Homeland Security said in its statement.
They’re right.
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the聽podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on聽,听,听听补苍诲听.鈥