WASHINGTON — A 47-year-old Texas mom whose son and son-in-law were convicted of conspiring to launch an ISIS-inspired attack made history Thursday by becoming the first person to appear before a court created by Congress in 1996 to speed up the deportation of “alien terrorists.”
Nazira Haji Zada, who has not been charged with a crime, appeared in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court before Chief Judge Joan Ericksen, who normally serves as a federal judge in Minnesota.
Under the framework of the court, the U.S. can attempt to remove noncitizens from the country upon representing them as an alien terrorist under a lower standard than would be required to convict them of a criminal charge. Appeals from that court would be made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Nazira, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, had been arrested earlier this week. She was described by the Justice Department as “the matriarch of an alien Afghan family.”
The DOJ filed an application on July 15 to have her removed from the U.S. for her alleged role in a plot to disrupt Election Day in 2024 with a mass shooting.
Nazira was flanked by her lawyers Matthew Farley and Mary Petras of the federal public defender’s office and two translators when she arrived in a federal courtroom in D.C.
“The United States Alien Terrorist Removal Court is now in session,” the clerk announced.
Ericksen, a George W. Bush appointee, quickly noted that Nazira was a lawful permanent resident of the United States and the “first case” to appear before a court that “had laid dormant for three decades.”
“This is not a criminal matter. This is a civil matter,” she said.
Farley immediately attacked the DOJ’s attempt to deport Nazira as unconstitutional. “This entire scheme is in violation of due process and unconstitutional,” he said.
He called the process a violation of Nazira’s rights under the “First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth” Amendments, and said the approach was a “run-around of bringing a criminal case.”
Farley also said he’s been reading up on the literature around the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, which lays out some of the reasons why it hasn’t been used in the past.
“I’ve probably read the same law review articles you have,” Ericksen said, joking that there weren’t very many of them.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hayden O’Byrne laid out the government’s allegations against Nazira and said that her “unsuspecting husband” had no knowledge of the alleged plot.
The government has said in a filing that before emigrating to the U.S., Nazira’s husband “was employed at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2016.”
Ericksen denied the motion by Nazira’s lawyer for immediate release but said she’d take up the challenges to the proceedings in future hearings.
It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration’s attempt to send Nazira back to Afghanistan by using the ATRC will hold up to constitutional challenges.
Legal scholar John Dorsett Niles wrote in 2008 that in theory it could be considered due process.
“In practice, however, the ATRC has never been used,” Niles wrote. “Perhaps to avoid an adverse constitutional ruling, the attorney general has never brought a deportation proceeding before the court.”
Before the hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the use of the court.
“Congress 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,” Blanche said in a statement. “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.”
When asked if more cases like Nazira’s could wind up being heard in the ATRC, a Justice Department spokesperson said only: “This Department of Justice will use every tool available to bring alien terrorists to justice and remove them from the United States, including this court established by Congress in 1996.”
Nazira landed on the government’s radar after her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, were arrested on Oct. 7, 2024, by authorities in Oklahoma.
Tawhedi had acquired two AK-47-style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition to target large crowds, the DOJ said. And Tawhedi had conspired with multiple people, including his brother-in-law, Abdullah Haji Zada, for several months to plot out the attack.
Nazira’s son, who was 17 at the time, was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty in April 2024.
Tawhedi, now 28, pleaded guilty to two offenses: conspiring and providing support to the Islamic State group, and attempting to receive firearms to commit a federal crime of terrorism.
But they weren’t the only members of the family who were part of the plot, justice officials argued.
Nazira signed a contract to sell their home and bought “one-way airfare” for her to fly with her remaining children to Kabul, Afghanistan, before the alleged Election Day plot was to be carried out, the government said.
And, according to the DOJ, Nazira had her children pledge their loyalty to the the Islamic State group and “supported” the plot.
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