Father of ISIS bride sues to get U.S. to let her come back
/ CBS/AP
Washington — The father of an Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Syria filed suit against the Trump administration Thursday in an effort to allow her return to the United States.
Ahmed Ali Muthana argues in the suit filed in federal court in Washington that his 24-year-old daughter, Hoda Muthana, is an American citizen by birth and should be allowed to come back to the U.S. with her toddler son.
Hoda Muthana is now in a Syrian refugee camp with the 18-month-old boy after fleeing the remnants of the Islamic State.
Her lawyers said in a statement that she expects to be charged with providing material support to terrorism if she is allowed to return to the U.S.
"Ms. Muthana has publicly acknowledged her actions and accepted full responsibility for those actions," the lawyers said. "In Ms. Muthana's words, she recognizes that she has 'ruined' her own life, but she does not want to ruin the life of her young child."
"At the end of the day, she is a U.S. citizen, and whether Americans make crimes or not, that doesn't deprive them of their citizenship," one of her attorneys, Hassan Shibly, told CBS News' Holly Williams.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the young woman is not a citizen and will not be admitted to the country.
The family and their lawyers say they were told that the U.S. determined she did not qualify for citizenship because her father was a Yemeni diplomat at the time of her birth.
But the family argues that is incorrect. They say that her father ceased to be a diplomat before she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, and that she had a legitimate passport when she left the U.S. to join the Islamic State in Syria in 2014.
The Obama administration initially determined she was not a citizen and notified her family that it was revoking her passport in January 2016.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a person born in the U.S. to an accredited foreign diplomatic officer is not subject to U.S. law and is not automatically considered a U.S. citizen at birth.
U.S.-backed forces in Syria are preparing for a final surge into the last town held by ISIS. Even after the terror group is destroyed, there is the question of what to do with the hundreds of ISIS fighters and their families from foreign countries, Williams points out.
Muthana left her home in Hoover, Alabama to become the bride of an ISIS fighter in Syria. She's now a widow.
First published on February 22, 2019
© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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