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The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from the “ISIS bride” who left Alabama to join the terrorist organization in Syria.
Hoda Muthana was born in New Jersey in October 1994 to a diplomat from Yemen and grew up in Alabama. She traveled to Syria in 2014 to join the Islamic State terror group, but then decided she wanted to return to the United States.
On Monday, the justices declined to consider Muthana’s appeal to allow her to return to the U.S. She’s been living in a Syrian refugee camp since 2019.
“While she was overseas the government determined she was not a U.S. citizen and revoked her passport, citing her father’s status as a diplomat at the time of her birth. Her family sued to enable her return to the United States,” the Associated Press reported.
“A federal judge ruled in 2019 that the U.S. government correctly determined Muthana wasn’t a U.S. citizen despite her birth in the country. Children of diplomats aren’t entitled to birthright citizenship. The family’s lawyers appealed, arguing that her father’s status as a diplomat assigned to the U.N. had ended before her birth, making her automatically a citizen,” the outlet added.
“Muthana surrendered to U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as Islamic State fighters were losing the last of their self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria and going to refugee camps. Muthana said she regretted her decision to join the group and wanted to return to the U.S. with her toddler child, the son of a man she met while living with the group. The man later died,” the AP report continued.
SCOTUS refuses to hear appeal of 'remorseful' ISIS bride who traveled from Alabama to Syria where she married THREE jihadis, had a child, and called for Memorial Day terror attacks – before begging to return to US https://t.co/fccBuPaE0s
— Tusk@ 426 (@FargoTundra) January 13, 2022
Muthana’s case gained widespread attention as former President Donald Trump tweeted about it, saying he had directed the secretary of state not to allow her back into the country.
“I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!” Trump wrote on Twitter back in 2019.
At the time, Pompeo said Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the country.
“She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States,” Pompeo said, adding: “We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria.”
Hassan Shibly, a family representative for Muthana, disputed Pompeo’s assertion at the time, saying that Muthana was born in New Jersey.
“The Trump administration continues its attempts to wrongfully strip citizens of their citizenship,” Shibly said. “Hoda Muthana had a valid US passport and is a citizen. She was born in Hackensack, NJ in October 1994, months after her father stopped being a diplomat.”
VICTORY: A judge ruled that Hoda Muthana,
a 25-year-old who traveled to Syria to join ISIS,
is not an American citizen.https://t.co/1k71nOh7r9
— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) November 15, 2019
