Hoda Muthana Denied US Citizenship: Other ISIS Brides From The Country

An Alabama woman who left her house to join the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Syria was denied U.S. citizenship and will not be allowed to return to the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.

Hoda Muthana, according to Pompeo, made a mistake when she joined the terror outfit and has no legal basis to claim American citizenship

In a statement, Pompeo said, “Ms Hoda Muthana is not a US citizen and will not be admitted into the United States. She does not have any legal basis, no valid US passport, no right to a passport nor any visa to travel to the United States.”

Meanwhile, the lawyer for Muthana’s family, Hassan Shilby, said she was born in New Jersey in 1994 and by the birthright route, she was an American citizen since anyone born in the United States or any of its jurisdictions is granted citizenship at birth. The law, however, differs if the child was born to a diplomat in the United States. But this wasn't a problem in Muthana's case, according to Shilby, since her father was discharged from his diplomatic post one month before her birth.

The family applied for an American passport after this. After checking the lapsed diplomatic status of her father, they were granted passports. Muthana got her first passport at birth and a passport renewal in 2014. However, she later burned the second passport when she moved to the ISIS-controlled territory.

She was one of the 1,500 people, who are the spouses and children of ISIS militants, being held in a Kurdish-operated detention camp in Syria. She fled the ISIS three weeks ago and was prohibited from leaving the camp with armed guards protecting her from ISIS supporters.

However, Muthana isn’t the first ISIS bride from the U.S. In 2017, the ISIS was recruiting an army of women who married ISIS militants. They called themselves the “lionesses of Allah” and their children were called the “cubs of caliphate”. They believed they were carrying the work of Allah through all the killings and bloodshed. The ISIS brides were living in Syria and Iraq and several of them made to the terrorist watchlist.

Shannon Maureen Conley was one of the first known U.S. female ISIS militant. Conley was from Denver and openly admitted she considered launching a VIP attack in the United States. She planned to marry a Tunisian fighter she had met online. The Muslim convert woman was arrested in 2014 at the Denver airport for providing material support to the terrorist group.

Another woman, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, from Vicksburg, Mississippi, was serving 12 years in a U.S. federal prison after she was arrested in 2015 for trying to travel to Syria and sending messages to undercover FBI agents, she thought were ISIS members. The FBI also revealed Young tried to help ISIS target small regional airports.

Daniela Greene was an FBI translator from Detroit who was secretly married to an ISIS leader after she converted to Islam. While she was assigned to investigate a designated terrorist, she snuck off to Syria and married Denis Cuspert. She also warned him about the FBI having an open investigation about his activities. Cuspert was a known ISIS recruiter who made and appeared in several ISIS propaganda videos.

Muthana said she regretted leaving the U.S. and joining the ISIS, but she was brainwashed. She gave birth to a son 18 months ago and wanted to return to the United States with the child. The child was from her third husband whom she married and divorced in Syria. She was married twice earlier but both the men were killed in combat.

In 2014, when she left her parents’ house, she claimed she joined the group since she yearned for a more Americanized life. “I had a good relationship with my family, but I wanted a more Americanized life. I wanted to go out, I wanted to have, like, friends, go to places. I didn’t get any of that.” Contradicting herself, she also said, “The only way out for me was to become practicing …to become more religious.”