Get ready for a legal battle between “ISIS bride” Hoda Muthana — and the government that doesn’t want her back.
The Trump administration on Wednesday declared that the Alabama woman — who joined ISIS in Syria four year ago but is now begging to be allowed back home — is not a US citizen and will not be allowed to return.
But her family’s lawyer insists she is an American — and that he has proof.
The State Department did not explain its basis for declaring that Muthana isn’t a citizen, but attorney Hassan Shibly says the feds claim her father was a diplomat at the time of her birth — and the babies of diplomats don’t get citizenship like other tots born in the US do.
Shibly, however, claims her dad had ceased working as a diplomat months before she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey on Oct. 28, 1994 — sharing as evidence a photo of her birth certificate, and one of a letter from the United States Mission to the U.N. dated Oct. 14, 2004, stating that her dad, Ahemed Ali Muthana, was a diplomat for Yemen from Oct. 15, 1990, to Sept. 1, 1994.
Another lawyer representing Muthana’s family told the New York Times her dad provided a letter to officials when her first American passport was issued as a child, showing that he had been discharged as a diplomat.
Muthana then successfully renewed her passport before running off to join ISIS in late 2014, Charlie Swift, the director of the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America, told the paper.
Once Muthana signed up to the terror group — tweeting out that she was going to burn her passport and urging US jihadis to commit massacres back home — the government sent her family a letter saying her passport had been revoked, according to Swift.
Her dad then sent back evidence of his diplomatic discharge, but never received a response, the attorney told the Times.
Legal eagles say the government may be able to mount a case against her claim to citizenship — but it’s far from as cut and dry as Trump and Pompeo made it sound.
“It is completely possible that there is a factual and legal dispute to be resolved here. But that can’t just be resolved by the president’s dictate,” said Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law who specializes in constitutional and national security law.
“There’s supposed to be process. If she applies for passport and is rejected, she’s entitled to challenge that. If the government claims she’s not a citizen, she’s entitled to challenge that. If the government concedes she’s a citizen but wants to revoke that, there’s a process for that,” he continued.
“No matter what the right answer, it’s supposed to come at the end of a process that’s not clear to me has taken place at all.”
Because of the power of diplomatic immunity, there’s no gray area or transitional period once someone ceases to be a diplomat, Vladeck said.
“If he was no longer a diplomat at the time she was born, the exceptions shouldn’t apply, “ he said.
“It’s possible she may not be a citizen, but that depends upon what was true at the time she was born and not just what the president says today … I think it’s going to be a court that has the last word.”