The Trump administration has brought the first case in the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court, seeking to oust an Afghan woman who prosecutors say supported her son’s ISIS-inspired plot to kill people on Election Day in 2024.
The case opens a new front in President Trump’s mass deportation effort, seeking to harness the resources of the terrorist court, set up 30 years ago but never tapped until now.
Charged was Nazira Haji Zada, 47, the mother of Abdullah Haji Zada and mother-in-law of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, two men who planned to use AK-47-style rifles for mass shootings during the last presidential election.
The Justice Department said Ms. Zada pledged her own loyalty to the Islamic State and helped radicalize other members of her family. The family also sold off property to help raise funds to finance the plot, the department said.
“The 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,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
He said Ms. Zada “never should have been here in the first place.”
The case is a test run for the court, known in Washington as the ATRC.
Though it was established by law in 1996, it was never triggered before now.
Congress wanted to create an avenue outside the usual deportation process for cases where the government felt it needed to use classified information that would be dangerous if it were made public or revealed to the deportation target.
In court filings, the Justice Department said information being used against Ms. Zada could tip off terrorists to FBI and U.S. intelligence sources and methods.
In an order Monday, U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, who serves as chief judge of the ATRC, said there is probable cause to allow the case into the terrorism court.
She ruled that trying to use the regular deportation process “would pose a risk to the United States’ national security.”
Ms. Zada came to the U.S. in 2018 as the spouse of an Afghan ally — someone who’d assisted in the U.S. war effort there. Her husband worked at Bagram Air Base from 2009 to 2016, according to an affidavit filed with the ATRC.
She was admitted with legal permanent residency status, which means classified information can’t be used against her in deportation proceedings — thus the resort to the terrorism court.
Tawhedi had come to the U.S. as part of President Biden’s chaotic Afghan evacuation, during the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2021.
He was one of tens of thousands of Afghans allowed to circumvent the usual immigration system through a “parole” program.
The other man in the plot, Ms. Zada’s son, was 17 at the time of the plot, though he pled guilty as an adult.
He was a legal permanent resident but, as part of his guilty plea, agreed to give up that status.
The two were accused of working with ISIS-K, the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State.
They were arrested weeks before the 2024 election.
Authorities said they found mountains of evidence tying Tawhedi to ISIS, including communications with an ISIS recruiter wondering whether 500 rounds of ammunition was enough; donations to a charity that funneled money to the group; and a video of Tawhedi reading martyrdom literature to his one-year-old daughter and a nephew.
The FBI conducted a sting operation, arranging to sell weapons to Tawhedi to prove he was serious about carrying out the attack.
Authorities said their broader family had been planning to return to Afghanistan ahead of the attacks.
The case is likely to test the legality of the terrorism court.
Under the rules of the court, targets of deportation are not allowed to review the classified intelligence against them. They can see an unclassified summary.
Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge who also handled terrorism cases for the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the court hasn’t been used before because of the legal questions surrounding it.
In a write-up for the Center for Immigration Studies, he said when he handled terrorism cases, they were usually able to find a way to raise the matter in regular deportation proceedings.
He also said immigration law is complex and since the ATRC uses regular district judges, they will “be forced to learn it on the fly” under tight deadlines set in the law.
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