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ISIS Mother Pleads to Return—to Alabama
We knew this would happen. All the men and women who were excited about fighting for ISIS wanted to be involved with the ISIS cause and they went to fight in Syria. And now one of them wants to come home with her child. 
Hoda Muthana went to Syria in 2014; she was one of 1,500 foreign women and the only American staying in a Kurdish-run refugee camp. She was married three times and widowed twice. And now she has an 18-month old son. She is asking to return to the United States.
Her attorney claims she was brainwashed by ISIS. She wanted to “spill American blood”; she was known online as a prominent spokesperson for ISIS. Now she says that joining ISIS “was a big mistake.”
She told The Guardian that her parents were very conservative and limited her freedom in Alabama. She claims that contributed to her radicalization.
In a letter obtained by ABC News, these were the words she wrote:
Being where I was and seeing the ppl [sic] around me scared me because I realized I didn’t want to be a part of this. My beliefs weren’t the same as theirs. In my quiet moments, in between bombings, starvation, cold and fear I would look at my beautiful little boy and know that I didn’t belong here and neither did he. I would think sometimes of my family, my friends and the life that I knew and I realized how I didn’t appreciate or maybe even really understand how important the freedoms that we have in America are. I do now. To say that I regret my past words, any pain that I caused my family and any concerns I would cause my country would be hard for me to really express properly.
I think her choices were unwise and irresponsible. She has now put her own life and that of her child’s potentially in danger from Islamist radicals. We don’t know if she has outgrown her brainwashing. Would we be safe if we admitted her to the U.S.? What about her child?
My heart goes out to her and I say no. You can’t return.
Published in Islamist Terrorism
Prosecuting the treasonous was all the rage in the eighteenth century but has been out of vogue for hundreds of years.
What once got you shot with dispatch will now get you a free sex-change operation and a book deal.
Or maybe there is? I mean there isn’t until it happens , and then there’s precedent.
https://www.justsecurity.org/62659/unpacking-some-of-issues-surrounding-hoda-muthana/
She was in her home not far from where I’m sitting right now, and decided she wanted to join violent jihad. She couldn’t have been forcibly brainwashed. She lived in a thriving, middle-class suburb. She could only have sought out her brainwashers.
Her parents were too conservative? So, join a bunch of latter-day hippies at Bonnaroo. But, no. Instead, she traveled thousands of miles to meet up with a group that is the apotheosis of fundamentalist Islam. She urged the spilling of American blood.
I believe in forgiving people for youthful foolishness, but this is a bit more than that. I would need to see a full-throated denunciation of ISIS and its beliefs. Until we get that, there will be no welcome for her in her former home.
I believe that you are both incorrect about this. I linked the statute before regarding loss of nationality, 8 USC 1481 (here it is again).
It provides 7 bases for loss of nationality, which includes loss of citizenship for a citizen. A “national of the United States” includes citizens and others who owe permanent allegiance to the US (this applies to various outlying US possessions; the statutory definition is at 8 USC 1101(22), here). 8 USC 1481 applies to “a person who is a national of the United States by birth or naturalization . . ..” Thus, I think that you are incorrect in believing that this law does not apply in cases of birthright citizenship.
I think that there are other laws allowing revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens, generally having to do with misrepresentations during the naturalization process. These laws are not applicable in the present case, so I don’t think that it’s productive to evaluate them further.
I am not remotely a subject-matter expert on immigration law. There may be nuances or exceptions here of which I am unaware. However, these statutes seem pretty clear to me (though a bit hard to find and parse — training and experience as a lawyer helps).
Supreme court ruled that you cannot deprive a natural born citizen of citizenship without their consent.
See Rogers v Bellei (1971)
Some youthful indiscretions are unforgivable. She married not one, not two, but three ISIS fighters and bore their children (two of whom died). I take those actions as a pretty firm commitment to a hostile ideology, whatever her words say now that ISIS is losing and her life has gotten hard. Too bad. So sad.
I’m open to the idea that, once there, those marriages may not have been entirely voluntary. But what she has said does not help her case. Bottom line: If we do not legally have to take her back, then there needs to be a compelling, positive case to do so. I haven’t seen that so far.
The Rogers decision actually referenced Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967) that ruled that loss of born citizenship required voluntary renunciation and that mere voting in a foreign election was not such a voluntary renunciation. In Rogers the Court found that a non-born citizen who could claim citizenship by virtue of the citizenship of a parent could be required to meet certain conditions to claim citizenship, and that those conditions were constitutional.
Of course the Government’s position in the “Alabama woman” case is that she is not a born citizen. But assuming she is one, then the question will turn on whether she factually has voluntarily renounced her citizenship under the terms 8 U.S. Code § 1481 and whether the provisions other than formal renouncement before a consular officer pass constitutional muster.