The Justice Department has used a national-security court that sat unused for three decades to deport an Afghan woman from the United States who supported an ISIS-inspired plot to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day in 2024.
On Friday, officials announced that Nazira Haji Zada, 47, a permanent resident from Fort Worth, Texas, was kicked out from the country after admitting that she is an “alien terrorist.”
Zada’s removal is the first completed case in the history of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a specialized tribunal Congress created in 1996 and that no prior administration ever used.
Federal prosecutors said Zada was the family matriarch who supported a plot by her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on or around Election Day 2024. The two men were arrested after buying firearms and ammunition from an undercover FBI employee. Abdullah, who was 17 at the time of arrest, later pleaded guilty as an adult and was sentenced to 15 years. Tawhedi pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and is awaiting sentencing.
Court records describe the family selling property, signing a contract to sell their house, and buying one-way tickets to Kabul, while the two men prepared to stay behind and attack. The government used classified information to establish Zada’s terrorist status and provided her court-appointed lawyers with a massive document production. Zada appeared before ATRC Chief Judge Joan Ericksen, conceded the designation, and waived appeal. The removal order was signed August 20 and unsealed after she was already out of the country. Zada is now permanently barred from the U.S.
FBI Director Kash Patel hailed Zada’s deportation, saying that an individual who supported a plot by ISIS-sympathizing relatives “has paid the price.”
“This is a historic and vitally important step in our work to protect the U.S. homeland from terrorism,” Patel said in a statement. “An individual who supported a plot by ISIS-sympathizing family members to commit an attack in America has paid the price for that. She came to our country, betrayed it, and has now lost the right to live here and enjoy our democratic freedoms. This FBI and our Justice Department partners will protect the American people from the threat of terrorism, using all means necessary.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin also hailed the move.
“From the moment President Trump took office, he made clear that his Administration would put the safety and security of the American people first,” said Mullin. “The President’s direction to use the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to expel Nazira Haji Zada, an Afghan national who plotted with members of her family to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack on American soil, delivers on that promise. Thanks to the President’s leadership and the coordinated efforts the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State, Nazira Haji Zada’s final order of removal is now FINAL. Those who plot acts of terrorism against the United States have no place in our country. We will find them, and we will use every lawful tool available to remove them.“
