Hoda Muthana left the United States to join the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014.
Now, she wants to come back home.
Muthana, of Yemeni descent, was born in New Jersey. Her family moved to Hoover, where she was raised in what the Associated Press has termed a “conservative, Muslim household.”
In 2014, Muthana told her mother she would be going on a trip for academic purposes to Turkey. However, instead of Turkey, Muthana went to Syria and joined the terrorist organization.
Democrat and Republican administrations alike have taken measures against Muthana. President Obama’s administration revoked her citizenship in 2016 and President Trump’s administration blocked her from returning.
Trump, in 2019, tweeted, “I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the country!”
Pompeo said Muthana is not an American, and “does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, and no right to a passport.”
It isn’t only presidents who have taken issue with her seeking to return to the U.S. Recently, the Supreme Court declared it would not consider her lawsuit requesting entry back into the country.
Muthana, who has been married three times, has a child by a now-deceased ISIS militant. She and the child are among thousands of other ISIS members who live in a camp in northeastern Syria.
Within these camps, ISIS still practices its inhumanity. Two girls of Egyptian descent, ages 11 and 13, were beheaded in December.
Muthana, a self-described victim of ISIS, discussed conditions that she lived in upon her arrival in the Middle East.
She told The News Movement, according to the Associated Press, “I’ve never seen that kind of filthiness in my life, like there was 100 women and twice as much kids, running around, too much noise, filthy beds.”
She also discussed with TNM what her plans would be if she were released from the camp, and her reservations about speaking openly against the terrorist group.
“Even here, right now, I can’t fully say everything I want to say,” she said. “But once I do leave, I will be an advocate against this.
“I wish I can help the victims of ISIS in the West understand that someone like me is not part of it, that I, as well, am a victim of ISIS.”
One of the lawyers for Muthana said her age should be considered in the possible decision of allowing her re-entry to the U.S.
According to the AP, attorney Hassan Shibly said, “She was a teenager who was the victim of a very sophisticated recruitment operation that focuses on taking advantage of the young, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised.”
NEW: Hoda Muthana was 20 when she left the US to join ISIS.
In her first video interview since she lost her appeal to return home, she explains why she joined the group, what life was like when she first arrived and what should happen to her now. https://t.co/QGRUsDjhjg
— The News Movement (@thenewsmovement) January 9, 2023
