Trump Burger Founder Facing Deportation, Faked 1,600 Flu Shots

Another foreign businessman involved in the Flatonia Trump Burger lawsuit faces deportation, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Iyad Muhammad Abuelhawa is a 55-year-old Jordanian citizen who founded the original Trump Burger location in Bellville. Abuelhawa, also known as Eddie Hawa, had been sued in Fayette County District Court by his business partner Roland Beainy over breach of contract regarding the Trump Burger location in Flatonia.

The Record reported last month that Beainy had been detained by ICE for illegally living in the United States. Beainy has since been granted bond while he undergoes immigration proceedings.

This week ICE reports that Abuelhawa also faces deportation.

“Iyad Muhammad Abuelhawa is a 55-year-old criminal alien from Jordan who has remained in the U.S. illegally for the past 16 years despite being ordered deported by an immigration judge on Sept. 15, 2009,” an ICE spokesman told the Record on Monday, Aug. 18. “While in the U.S. illegally, Abuelhawa has repeatedly put the lives of innocent Americans in jeopardy. In 2007, he was convicted of healthcare fraud and misbranding of a drug for dangerously injecting 1,600 Houston-area residents with fake flu shots. In 2000, he was convicted of assault and in 2018 he was convicted of intimidation. As a result of the current administration’s focus on restoring integrity to our nation’s immigration laws, he was arrested by ICE on June 2 and will no longer be free to endanger anyone in the U.S. again.”

Abuelhawa was sentenced to four years in federal prison in 2007 after pleading guilty to health care fraud and drug misbranding. According to a report in the Houston Chronicle at the time, Abuelhawa owned several health care businesses in Houston. He and a co-defendant had contracted with Exxon Mobil to administer flu vaccines at a health fair held at a Baytown refinery. Abuelhawa charged $20 per shot. But instead of legitimate flu vaccines, investigators discovered the shots were loaded with sterile water solution. The fake vaccines were also administered to a number of nursing home residents, with Medicare and Medicaid footing the bill.

Reports at the time said Exxon Mobil spent more than $700,000 to test all the victims for blood-borne diseases after the fraud came to light.

The Chronicle reported that Abuelhawa was supposed to be deported following his prison sentence, but that never happened.

Nine years later Abuelhawa made headlines again under his Americanized name, Eddie Hawa. In 2016, he and his wife were operating the Bellville Cafe, a little restaurant on the Austin County Courthouse Square. In October of that year, just before the presidential election, they rebranded as “Trump Cafe.”

TV and newspaper reporters descended on Bellville to tell the story of a Muslim immigrant family and their restaurant named after Donald Trump, who would be elected to his first term in the White House just a few weeks later. The restaurant closed in 2017. Hawa launched a new version of the restaurant in 2020, this time called Trump Burger. About a year later Roland Beainy entered the picture.

An Aug. 10 story in the Chronicle profiled Abuelhawa and his relationship with Beainy ( https://www.houstonchronicle. com/news/houstontexas/ article/trump-burgerorigin- story-20808182.php).

According to the story, the two men went into business together around 2021. At some point, they had a falling out. On April 16 of this year, Beainy filed suit against Abuelhawa over the Flatonia restaurant. In July, the Chronicle interviewed Abuelhawa’s wife, Suad Hamedah, about how the business relationship between Beainy and her husband had soured.

“I’m doing my best to put him in jail,” Hamedah told the Chronicle. “We don’t need people in our country like this.”

By that time, Beainy had been detained by ICE and released on bond. But what she didn’t tell the Chronicle reporter (or if she did, they didn’t report on it) was that her husband was then in ICE custody as well.

The Flatonia Trump Burger lawsuit remains pending in Fayette County District Court.

According to documents filed in the lawsuit, Beainy claims he paid Abuelhawa $65,000 for an ownership interest in the Flatonia business. Abuelhawa filed a counterclaim and an affidavit stating that he never sold any interest in the restaurant, and he never received $65,000. The affidavit stated that Beainy “was hired to manage the Trump Burger location … in Flatonia” and “no ownership was ever contemplated on behalf of Roland Beainy.”

On July 16, the court imposed a temporary injunction against Abuelhawa, who did not appear for the hearing. According to ICE’s statement, he was in custody at the time.

The court order prohibits Abuelhawa from contacting the plaintiff, entering or approaching the business premises, or contacting or threatening the store manager or staff. Furthermore, the order prohibits Abuelhawa from accessing money that belongs to Trump Burger or access any accounts of Trump Burger.

Their dispute may now be a moot point since ICE has pledged to remove both Beainy and Abuelhawa from the country.