Judge rules Alabama woman who joined ISIS is not a U.S. citizen
A federal judge in Washington ruled on Thursday that Hoda Muthana, a 25-year-old from Alabama who joined the Islamic State in 2014 and went to Syria, is not a U.S. citizen.
Muthana, who has a 2-year-old son, was raised in Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham. She used her U.S. passport to fly to Syria, and was detained by Kurdish forces in January after fleeing the last swath of land controlled by ISIS. After she was captured, Muthana asked to be sent back to the United States.
Muthana's father was a diplomat from Yemen who worked at the United Nations, and the Trump administration argued that even though Muthana was born in New Jersey, her father's residency status made her ineligible for citizenship. Trump tweeted about Muthana earlier this year, saying he told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo she would never be let back into the country.
Muthana's lawyer, Christina Jump, told The Guardian she is looking into further options for her client. "United States citizenship cannot be revoked by tweet or any other form of social media, and today's ruling does not change that," she said.
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