AP News66%
Long-dormant court holds its first public hearing as the US seeks to deport an Afghan woman 3%
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN14% ERIC TUCKER38%
7/30/2026, 10:04:39 AM
Keywords: Courts, Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, Terrorism, Immigration, District Of Columbia, United States Government, Islamic State Group, United States, Tx State Wire, Dc Wire, Texas, Alien Terrorist Removal Court Deportation Dormant Trump, Joan Ericksen, U S Department Of Justice, Abdullah Haji Zada, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, Afghanistan, George W Bush, U S Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Matthew Farley
BS Summary: This article contains 5 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Hasty Generalization, and Appeal to Emotion, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 14.7% saturation with 81 hits. Analysis detected 193 faulty-reasoning hits from 550 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 12.5% and a BS Rank of 3% (22,056 of 22,577 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 97.70% of the article peer group.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s activation of a long-dormant court to seek an Afghan woman’s deportation violates her constitutional rights, a defense lawyer argued Thursday at a hearing for the first case to be heard in the obscure court since its creation 30 years ago.
The woman’s attorney, Matthew Farley, urged the chief judge of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to dismiss the case against Nazira Haji Zada and immediately release his client, who the government alleges is an Islamic State supporter.
Ericksen, a senior judge who sits in Minnesota and was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W.
Bush, acknowledged that the court was operating without a clear blueprint.
“This is a runaround for bringing a criminal case,” Farley said during the court’s first-ever public hearing.
“We probably read the same law review articles.
There aren’t that many,” the judge told Farley.
An FBI memo dated July 15 said it “developed information” that Zada is an IS supporter who had her children pledge their loyalty to the terrorist group.
The memo says she “supported” a plot by relatives to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack in the United States.
Zada was led into the courtroom by U.S.
Marshals Service deputies.
Interpreters translated the proceedings for Zada, who answered the judge’s questions with head nods instead of words.
The judge cautioned that the court was still in the process of building up its “infrastructure.”
“This is not a criminal matter,” the judge told her.
“This is a civil matter that arises under the immigration code.”
Justice Department attorney Hayden O’Byrne read aloud a brief summary of the case but noted that the FBI’s investigation of Zada involves classified information that cannot be made public.
The judge assured Zada that the federal courts routinely handle cases involving classified information, even though her case is the first of its kind.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that Congress created the court to deport “alien terrorists who never should have been here in the first place.”
“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.
The Department’s application in this court makes clear that terrorists have no place in the United States of America,” Blanche added.
The case against Zada opens a new, untested front for President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign, which has flooded the nation’s federal court system with immigration proceedings, sometimes based on novel or shaky legal foundations.
FBI agents arrested her Tuesday at her Fort Worth, Texas, home.
She is not charged with any crimes.
Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, was sentenced in November to 15 years in prison and court records show he previously agreed to be removed from the U.S. after his release.
Her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, previously worked as a security guard for an American military installation in Afghanistan.
He pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to provide material support to IS.
Prosecutors have said he took steps to advance his attack plans by ordering AK-47 rifles, liquidating his family’s assets and buying one-way tickets for his wife and child to travel home to Afghanistan.
Analysis
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