By Staff Reporter |

Senator Mark Kelly defended the foreign terrorist sympathizer deported recently by the Trump administration: Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese kidney transplant specialist and Brown University professor.

Kelly described Alawieh to constituents as a “talented transplant doctor” and a “lawful H1B visa holder” during a town hall on Monday. Kelly failed to mention Alawieh was deported for attending the funeral of terrorist Hassan Nasrallah — Hezbollah’s late longtime leader — and defending the terrorist to immigration agents. Instead, Kelly alleged her deportation had no justification. 

“She was tossed out of the country because she visited some relatives in, I think, Lebanon, or somewhere. So, thrown out without cause, without due process. So we’re up against an administration that does not follow the rules, I think it’s very fair to say, and in some cases breaking laws,” said Kelly.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explained Alawieh was deported for openly admitting her support of Nassrallah to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers. Alawieh was in the country as a kidney transplant specialist. 

“A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security,” stated DHS. 

Court documents revealed Alawieh had photos supportive of Nasrallah along with Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on her phone. Alawieh’s legal counsel withdrew recently from her case, citing “further diligence” as their cause for dropping her as a client. 

“Dr. Alawieh stated that Nasrallah is the leader of Hezbollah and as a Shia Muslim, he is highly regarded in the Shia community as a religious figure,” stated the prosecutors. “According to Dr. Alawieh, she follows him for his religious and spiritual teachings and not his politics.”

Kelly made the remarks during a town hall with fellow Senator Ruben Gallego on Monday.

The pair came home this week to disseminate their Democratic leadership’s talking points criticizing the House Republican-led budget as a threat to Medicaid.

House Republicans’ proposed budget (HCR 14) looks to reduce spending by $880 billion. The House approved the plan last month. In response, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries claimed the budget plan would issue “the largest cut to Medicaid in American history,” since the committee charged by the proposed budget to find cuts, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, mainly oversees Medicaid funding (93 percent of its oversight, per the Congressional Budget Office). 

House Republicans contested the Democrats’ claim, arguing the budget plan doesn’t mention Medicaid. 

While Kelly admitted the mass cancellations of Medicaid hadn’t occurred yet, he said it was a “high probability.” Kelly said Trump’s “giant tax cut” benefited “millionaires and billionaires” mainly.

“All of this stuff you’re hearing every single day is so they give a big giant tax cut to people who don’t need a tax cut. We can raise the taxes of billionaires, and they will still be billionaires, and that’s what we should be doing, we shouldn’t be cutting these services” said Kelly.

Kelly predicted the Trump administration’s changes to Medicaid and Medicare would include additional red tape that would prevent people from getting on or staying on Medicaid, and possibly cutting the match funding number for states.

With reduced or eliminated Medicaid and Medicare, Kelly predicted people would “get sicker” and come to rely on emergency room visits as their primary form of health care, consequently driving up health care costs. Gallego echoed this assessment. 

“You will see these emergency rooms become the primary care doctors,” said Gallego.

“This hasn’t happened yet, and it’s possible we can prevent it from happening,” said Kelly. 

Kelly proposed expanding access to Medicaid and Medicare as well as increasing taxes on the wealthy as the remedies for reducing health care costs.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Arizona has about 780,000 individuals enrolled in Medicare and over 483,000 enrolled in a prescription drug plan only out of over 1.5 million individuals recorded as Medicare eligible in the state. 

“There’s no way they can get to those tax cuts without Medicaid. The math doesn’t math,” said Gallego.

Gallego said he thought Republicans were “dumb enough” to go after Medicaid, but perhaps not Medicare. 

“In order for them to cut $850 billion from a very narrow slice, that means they’re going to have to go deep,” said Gallego. 

Kelly disagreed, saying Republicans were “dumb enough” to go after Medicare. 

Gallego predicted certain working families above the federal poverty line but still within Arizona eligibility levels would be cut from Medicaid.

Gallego and Kelly encouraged a mass grassroots response to oppose the Trump administration. 

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