Last week, NBC News offered another sympathetic interview to Hoda Muthana, the New Jersey-born daughter of a Yemeni diplomat who left Alabama in 2014 to join the Islamic State in Syria and subsequently married three terrorists. Though she helped the terrorist group carry on its barbaric campaign for years and infamously tweeted in 2015 to American-based jihadists, “Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood,” she told NBC she deserves “a second chance” because she “regrets every single thing.”
On Thursday, a judge ruled against Muthana and in favor of the Trump administration, which contends that she is not in fact a U.S. citizen because she was born on American soil while her father still had diplomatic status in the U.S.
“Judge Reggie Walton said there was sufficient evidence that Muthana had been born while her father, who once represented Yemen in the United Nations, still had diplomatic status in the US,” Buzzfeed News reported Thursday. “Federal regulations and international law state that children of foreign diplomats born in the US are not subject to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees birthright citizenship, because they are born under the jurisdiction of another country.”
Along with determining that Muthana does not deserve U.S. citizenship, Judge Walton ruled that her former diplomat father cannot provide financial support to her or her young son, born in ISIS-controlled territory (the child’s father is reportedly the third terrorist Muthana married). To do so would be providing material support to terrorism, Walton ruled.
Muthana’s layer, Christina Jump, told BuzzFeed following the ruling that they believe they can appeal the case and “pursue any additional options which may be available solely to [her] child.”
As reported by the New York Post, Muthana’s father, Ahmed Ali Muthana, filed a lawsuit on behalf of his daughter claiming that he surrendered his diplomatic status on June 2, 1994, before she was born. But the Trump administration has made clear that they reject the argument.
“Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Feb 20, 2019. “She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States. We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria
The same day, Trump tweeted: “I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!”
The Obama administration agreed, informing Muthana’s family in 2016 that her passport was revoked and that she is not a U.S. citizen.
Following the terrorist group’s collapse, Muthana has been living with her 2-year-old son in a tent in the al-Roj refugee camp in northeast Syria for the last 10 months. The camp, which is guarded by an all-woman Kurdish militia, contains about 500 women who likewise joined the failed jihadist campaign.
In her interview with NBC last week, Muthana painted herself as a victim, living in perpetual fear of retribution from fellow former ISIS supporters for openly denouncing her past views and actions. “I am risking my life doing these types of interviews,” Muthana told NBC.