Hoda Muthana, the so-called “ISIS bride” who is trying to work her way back into the United States after escaping to join the terrorist organization, has lost her first legal battle, and will not be welcomed into the U.S. on an “emergency” basis.
The Washington Times reports that a federal judge denied Murthana’s attorneys’ claims that she is under severe duress and must return to the United States, even before her petition for citizenship is litigated. He denied the motion which requested Muthana’s case be heard on an “emergency basis,” rather than when it comes up for review on the federal docket.
Muthana will remain in a refugee camp in Syria with her toddler son until the court officially takes up her case, which could happen in the next several months. The federal judge who heard the emergency motion on Monday did agree that Muthana’s case “has merit,” so it was not dismissed entirely.
Muthana’s case is complex. She believes she is a citizen and should be allowed to return to the United States because she did not renounce her citizenship when she left to join the Islamic State in Syria. After discovering that the “terrorist life” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, she, like many other westerners who thought they were signing up for a romantic crusade through the Middle East, says she regrets her decision and wants to return home to Alabama.
The United States, of course, contends that Muthana is not a citizen and never was, because her father was a Yemeni diplomat living in New Jersey at the time of her birth, and the children of diplomats inhereit the citizenship of their parents, not the citizenship of the country in which they reside.- READ MORE