The United States: A woman’s request from the Islamic State was rejected

BIrmingham, Alabama, USA (AP) – The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of a woman who left her home in Alabama to join the Islamic State, but later decided to return to the United States.

Judges on Monday dismissed without comment the appeal of Hoda Muthana, the daughter of a Yemeni diplomat who was born in New Jersey in October 1994 and raised near Birmingham, Alabama.

Al-Muthana left the United States to join the Islamic State in 2014, apparently after becoming radicalized online.

When she was abroad, the government decided she was not a US citizen and revoked her passport, citing her father’s status as a diplomat at the time of her birth. His family filed a lawsuit to allow her to return to the United States.

In 2019, a federal judge ruled that the federal government had correctly determined that Muthana was not a US citizen despite being born in the country. Children of diplomats are not entitled to citizenship by birth. Lawyers for the family filed an appeal, arguing that her father’s status as a diplomat at the United Nations expired before he was even born, making him an automatic citizen.

Al-Muthanna surrendered to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as ISIS was losing its last self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria and going into refugee camps.

Al-Muthanna said she regretted her decision to join the group and wanted to return to the United States with her young son, the son of a man she met while staying with the group. The man later died.

His current whereabouts are unclear. Family attorney Christina Jump, of the Center for Constitutional Law for Muslims in America, did not immediately respond to an email on Tuesday.

Trump tweeted about the issue, saying he had instructed the Secretary of State to allow the woman back into the country.