President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is barring a U.S.-born former Islamic State (IS) propagandist from returning home, making the highly unusual case that she is not a U.S. citizen.
Mr. Trump’s refusal to admit 24-year-old Hoda Muthana will likely face legal challenges, with U.S. citizenship generally extremely difficult to lose.
Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he has “instructed” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the country” — a break with usual U.S. protocol not to comment on individuals’ immigration issues.
“Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States,” Mr. Pompeo said in a terse statement. “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.”
Mr. Pompeo did not elaborate on the legal rationale for not considering the Alabama native, who travelled to Syria on her U.S. passport, a citizen. But in a loophole that could boost the government case, Ms. Muthana’s father had been an envoy from Yemen, and children of diplomats are not automatically granted citizenship.
Ms. Muthana’s lawyer, Hassan Shilby, showed a birth certificate that demonstrated that she was born in New Jersey in 1994 and said her father had ceased being an envoy “months” before her birth. “She is a U.S. citizen. She had a valid passport. She may have broken the law and, if she has, she's willing to pay the price,” Mr. Shilby said.
