Judge Rules ISIS Bride Hoda Muthana Not An American Citizen, Denies Re-Entry

Here's Trump's tweet from earlier this year promising that Hoda would not be allowed to return to the U.S. (another promise kept!):

The Washington Examiner has more details on the decision:

A woman born in New Jersey, who fled the United States to join the Islamic State five years ago, isn't an American citizen and won't be leaving the Syrian refugee camp where she resides, a federal judge ruled. 

           

Hoda Muthana, the so-called ISIS bride, “doesn’t have a constitutional right to return to the United States because she is not a U.S. citizen,” Judge Reggie Walton of the District of Columbia District Court ruled Thursday. 

           

Muthana, 25, left her family home in Alabama and dropped out of school in 2014 after making contact with ISIS fighters through social media. She was born to a Yemeni diplomat in 1994 and was issued an American passport despite eventual confusion about when her father's diplomatic post officially came to an end. 

           

Muthana burned her U.S. passport in 2014 and declared herself to be a part of the caliphate, using social media to encourage others to join too. She married an Australian-born ISIS fighter who was killed in 2015 and then married a Tunisian-born fighter who was also killed, but with whom she had a son. Muthana also married and divorced another fighter. 

           

During the brief hearing Thursday afternoon, the judge heard arguments from Christina Jump, who was representing Hoda Muthana’s father Mohammed Ali Muthana, and from DOJ attorney Scott Stewart, who was appearing on behalf of the State Department and the U.S. government. Walton’s surprise ruling came after a 15-minute recess. The judge’s quick decision may have been based on the recent shifting and uncertain conditions in Syria he referenced in his opening remarks. Walton said he’d issue a written opinion within 30 days. 

The National Review also said:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that 25-year-old Hoda Muthana, who lived in Alabama but left the U.S. in 2014 to join ISIS, is not an American citizen and therefore the country is not required to repatriate her.

Muthana is the daughter of Yemen’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Ahmed Ali Muthana. Judge Reggie Walton ruled that because Hoda was born while Ahmed Ali still had diplomatic status, Hoda could not be considered a U.S. citizen. Ahmed Ali has since become a naturalized citizen.

In addition, Walton ruled that Ahmed Ali cannot provide financial aid to his daughter, who escaped from ISIS to a Kurdish refugee camp in 2018. Hoda Muthana has a son, Adam, who was born in ISIS territory.

U.S. law prevents the children of foreign diplomats from receiving American citizenship by birthright. Lawyers for Muthana’s family had claimed Ahmed Ali’s diplomatic status expired two months before Hoda’s birth in New Jersey, a claim apparently rejected by Judge Walton.

The Washington Times added:

Ms. Muthana has blown hot and cold on whether she wants to live in the U.S.

                                                                                                                                                                 

In 2015, when ISIS seemed to be on the rise and established a de facto state that it claimed to be the Muslim caliphate, she called for mass terrorism in the U.S.

                                                                                                                                                        

Via Twitter, she called on American Muslims to assassinate then-President Barack Obama and “go on drivebys, and spill all of their blood.”

                                                                                                                                                        

With the caliphate in ruins in 2019, Ms. Muthana, who was being profiled by NBC, BuzzFeed and other outlets, was being detained in al-Hawl refugee camp in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

She had a change of heart.

                                                                                                                                

“I believe that America gives second chances. I want to return,” she told the Guardian.