The father of an Alabama college student who left the United States to join the Islamic State terror group is suing the U.S. government after officials announced they would be refusing her entry back into the country. In 2014, Hoda Muthana, now 24, withdrew from college and used her tuition money to purchase a ticket to Turkey before traveling to join the group in Syria.
Now with an 18-month-old son, and in light of the demise of the Islamic terror group at the hands of coalition forces, Muthana is demanding she be let back into the country. However, President Donald Trump has personally instructed officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, not to allow Muthana re-entry.
“This is a woman who inflicted enormous risk on American soldiers, on American citizens,” Pompeo said in an interview with the Fox Business Network. “She is a terrorist. She’s not coming back.”
I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2019
Consequently, Muthana’s father, Ahmed Ali Muthana, has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of an “unlawful attempt” to revoke is daughter’s citizenship.
According to a statement announcing the lawsuit, Muthana has “publicly acknowledged her actions and accepted full responsibility.” In addition to accepting she might face federal charges back in the United States, the terrorist said “she recognizes that she has ‘ruined’ her own life, but she does not want to ruin the life of her young child.”
“Upon her return to the United States, Mr Muthana’s daughter is prepared and willing to surrender to any charges the United States justice department finds appropriate and necessary,” read the lawsuit, which was filed with the US district court in Washington, according to the Guardian. “She simply requires the assistance of her government in facilitating that return for herself and her young son.”
According to the BBC, Muthana’s father is represented by the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America.
One of the lawyers representing him, Hassan Shibly, tweeted about the case, arguing that the Trump administration was attempting to “wrongfully strip citizens of their citizenship.”
STATEMENT RESPOSE TO POPMEO:
The Trump administration continues its attempts to wrongfully strip citizens of their citizenship.
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 diplomat
— Hassan Shibly (@HassanShibly) February 20, 2019
“Spill all of their blood”
Married twice, both times to ISIS fighters who later died, Muthana used her social media accounts to incite terror on American soil. “Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them,” she once tweeted. “Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades..go on drive by’s + spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n drive all over them. Kill them.”
But now, in a desperate plea to get her feet back on American soil, the young woman insisted that she has changed her ways and is now a big fan of the United States. “I prefer America to anywhere else,” she said in an interview with NBC News, noting that she “deeply regrets” joining the Islamic Stat — a group that has murdered and enslaved thousands over recent years.
Despite once controlling over 88,000 square kilometers of territory stretching from western Syria to eastern Iraq, the Islamic State’s so-called “caliphate” has now been reduced to less than half a square kilometer of land, located outside the Eastern Syrian town of Baghouz. Thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, are currently being evacuated out of the area, as Kurdish-led Syrian forces edge closer to expelling the last remaining jihadis.