WASHINGTON -- The father of an Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State group in Syria filed suit against President Donald Trump's administration Thursday in an effort to allow her return to the United States.
Ahmed Ali Muthana argues in the suit filed in federal court in Washington that his 24-year-old daughter, Hoda Muthana, is an American citizen by birth and should be allowed to come back to the U.S. with her toddler son.
Hoda Muthana is now in a Syrian refugee camp with the 18-month-old boy after fleeing the remnants of the Islamic State.
Her lawyers said in a statement that she expects to be charged with providing material support to terrorism if she is allowed to return to the U.S.
"Ms. Muthana has publicly acknowledged her actions and accepted full responsibility for those actions," the lawyers said. "In Ms. Muthana's words, she recognizes that she has 'ruined' her own life, but she does not want to ruin the life of her young child."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the young woman is not a citizen and will not be admitted to the country.
The family and their lawyers say they were told that the U.S. determined she did not qualify for citizenship because her father was a Yemeni diplomat at the time of her birth.
But the family argues that is incorrect. They say that her father ceased to be a diplomat before she was born in Hackensack, N.J., and that she had a legitimate passport when she left the U.S. to join the Islamic State in Syria in 2014.
President Barack Obama's administration initially determined she was not a citizen and notified her family that it was revoking her passport in January 2016.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a person born in the U.S. to an accredited foreign diplomatic officer is not subject to U.S. law and is not automatically considered a U.S. citizen at birth.
A similar question of citizenship was unfolding in Britain this week, as the family of U.K. teenager Shamima Begum asked Home Secretary Sajid Javid for help in taking her baby to Britain and describing him as a "true innocent."
But there is a key difference in Begum's case: Begum has told British media outlets that she did not regret traveling to Syria to join extremist fighters, triggering criticism in Britain and even from her own family.
"We are sickened by the comments she has made, but, as a family man yourself, we hope you will understand that we, as her family, cannot simply abandon her," her sister, Renu Begum, wrote in the letter to Javid.
Shamima Begum was 15 when she fled east London with two other friends to travel to Syria to marry Islamic State fighters in 2015 at a time when the group's online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate.
Begum, now 19, resurfaced at a refugee camp in Syria and recently told reporters she wanted to go home.
Renu Begum wrote to Javid that the family hopes he will understand "why we must, therefore, assist Shamima in challenging your decision to take away the one thing that is her only hope at rehabilitation, her British citizenship," she added.
The situation with Shamima Begum's citizenship is complex and will likely be argued in the courts. Javid has revoked her citizenship -- even while he said he would not make a decision that would render a person stateless. Her family has insisted she is not a dual citizen.
"We lost Shamima to a murderous and misogynistic cult," the letter read. "My sister has been in their thrall now for four years, and it is clear to me that her exploitation at their hands has fundamentally damaged her."
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/23/2019