Afghan Woman Deported in First Case by Alien Terrorist Removal Court

Afghan Woman Deported in First Use of Alien Terrorist Removal Court

An Afghan woman living in Texas as a lawful permanent resident has been deported to Afghanistan after the Justice Department used a 30-year-old, previously unused court to remove her as an “alien terrorist,” officials announced Friday.

Nazira Haji Zada, 47, of Fort Worth, conceded she met the legal definition of an alien terrorist and waived her right to appeal a removal order issued Aug. 20 by Alien Terrorist Removal Court Chief Judge Joan N. Ericksen. The order was unsealed Friday after her return to Afghanistan. She was never charged with a crime. The government said she is now permanently inadmissible to the United States.

The Justice Department alleged Haji Zada supported an ISIS-inspired plot by her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day 2024. Both men pleaded guilty last year; her son was sentenced to 15 years. Prosecutors said she pledged loyalty to ISIS, worked to indoctrinate her children, supported the plot, and concealed plans to relocate the family to ISIS-controlled territory from her husband. The government provided her lawyers with roughly half a terabyte of documents and relied on classified evidence that she and her attorneys could not fully review.

Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in 1996 to handle deportation cases involving classified national-security information that cannot be made public. No administration had used it until the Justice Department filed its application in July. Haji Zada was arrested at her home that month. Her federal public defenders initially argued the secretive process violated due process because she could not see or challenge the classified evidence. They later said her decision to consent to removal “should not be seen as an endorsement of this court’s legitimacy.”

Attorney General Todd Blanche called the outcome “a landmark case” and “a win for national security and the rule of law,” saying people who support terrorism should not live in the United States. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said she “abused our Nation’s hospitality.” The swift resolution avoided a longer fight over the court’s procedures and constitutionality.

Sources: CBS News (updated Sept. 11, 2026), Justice Department / USCIS announcement, The New York Times, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press. Original CBS article: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghan-woman-deported-doj-alien-terrorist-removal-court/.

Nazira Haji Zada, 47, was deported to Afghanistan after conceding she is an “alien terrorist” in the DOJ’s first case before a 1996 court that uses classified evidence. She was never charged with a crime.