{"id":792668,"date":"2026-07-30T04:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T04:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792668\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T04:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T04:36:14","slug":"us-uses-dormant-court-against-afghan-woman-charged-in-terror-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792668\/","title":{"rendered":"US uses dormant court against Afghan woman charged in terror plot"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 An Afghan woman accused of supporting an Islamic State-inspired plot in the U.S. is the first person facing deportation through the Trump administration\u2019s use of an obscure court<\/a> that remained dormant for 30 years, according to court records<\/a> filed Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on Thursday in Washington, D.C., for the government\u2019s petition to deport Nazira Haji Zada, of Fort Worth, Texas. Nazira was arrested earlier this week.<\/p>\n

An FBI memo<\/a> dated July 15 said it \u201cdeveloped information\u201d that Nazira is an Islamic State supporter who had her children pledge their loyalty to the terrorist group. Nazira \u201csupported\u201d a plot by relatives to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack in the U.S., the memo says. <\/p>\n

Court filings identify Nazira as the mother and mother-in-law of two Afghan men who were convicted in Oklahoma for their roles in the 2024 Election Day plot. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, was sentenced last November to 15 years in prison and court records show he previously agreed to be removed from the U.S. after he is released from prison.<\/p>\n

Her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, previously worked as a security guard for an American military installation in Afghanistan. He pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group<\/a>, and prosecutors have said he took steps to advance his attack plans by ordering AK-47 rifles, liquidating his family\u2019s assets and buying one-way tickets for his wife and child to travel home to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was established in 1996 but had never received a petition until this month, when the Justice Department filed an application seeking Nazira\u2019s removal. Documents in support of that application were unsealed Wednesday night ahead of a scheduled hearing Thursday.<\/p>\n

The long-dormant court has a specific authority to conduct deportation proceedings for individuals whom the Justice Department classifies as \u201calien terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court is comprised of five federal judges from different districts across the country who are appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, with all proceedings, at least for now, taking place at the federal courthouse in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court three decades ago to remove from the United States alien terrorists who never should have been here in the first place,\u201d acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe allegations in this case show the matriarch of an ISIS-sympathizing family aiding in a plot to launch a mass casualty attack on American voters on Election Day. The Department\u2019s application in this court makes clear that terrorists have no place in the United States of America,\u201d Blanche added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 An Afghan woman accused of supporting an Islamic State-inspired plot in the U.S. is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[336794,10908,23,2302,3505,12,2442,793,790,141972,336793,141970,3,24265,1022,116294,1059,28387,795,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-792668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-abdullah-haji-zada","tag-afghanistan","tag-america","tag-courts","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-fort-worth","tag-general-news","tag-immigration","tag-islamic-state-group","tag-nasir-ahmad-tawhedi","tag-new-orleans-truck-attack","tag-news","tag-terrorism","tag-texas","tag-todd-blanche","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-federal-bureau-of-investigation","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}