Pompeo Says Alabama Woman Who Joined ISIS Can’t Ever Return to US

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement Wednesday ruling out allowing Hoda Muthana back into the United States. Muthana left Alabama to briefly join ISIS, and now regrets the decision .
This is a tough issue for the US government, as the Trump Administration has been pushing hard for the EU to repatriate hundreds of citizens who are detained in Syria for ISIS memberships, but the US is refusing to take back one.

The State Department is arguing their way around taking Muthana back by claiming that she has “no legal basis” to claim US citizenship, even though she was born in New Jersey in 1994. This is forcing a roundabout argument against birthright citizenship.

The State Department is claiming Muthana’s father was a diplomat at the time of her birth, but father was a diplomat from Yemen. The US does not grant birthright citizenship to diplomats’ children.

Yet the paperwork shows Muthana was born October 28, 1994, and her father’s term of employment for the Yemen mission to the UN ended September 1, 1994, meaning he was no longer a diplomat at the time.

Muthana has been treated as a citizen her whole life, and had a US passport, though officials now say it is revoked. Since she was not born in Yemen, she also isn’t a Yemeni citizen, meaning she presently has no citizenship.