A 1996 terrorism court is used for the first time

The Justice Department said on Friday that Nazira Haji Zada has been deported to Afghanistan after the first completed case in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Congress created the court in 1996. It had never received a petition until this summer.

Haji Zada, 47, was a lawful permanent resident living in Fort Worth, Texas. She was arrested in July. Attorney General Todd Blanche filed the removal papers on 15 July. In unsealed filings dated 20 August she waived her right to fight detention and agreed to removal. Senior U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, sitting as the court's chief judge, ordered her out the same day. The papers reached the public on Friday. Her admission cannot be used against her in a criminal case.

The plot that put her in the file

Prosecutors say she helped conceal an Islamic State-inspired plan by her son and son-in-law for a mass shooting on Election Day 2024 in Oklahoma. She was never charged. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, 19, was sentenced to 15 years and has already agreed to be removed after prison. Her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, also pleaded guilty. He once worked as a security guard at an American military site in Afghanistan. Both men are to be deported when they leave prison.

An FBI memo dated 15 July said agents had "developed information" that she was an Islamic State supporter and that she had her children pledge loyalty to the group. Those sentences sit in a civil file, not a criminal indictment. That is the design of the 1996 statute. It lets the government remove a non-citizen it labels an "alien terrorist" without winning a criminal conviction first.

Why the court was dusty

Ordinary immigration courts already deport people. Criminal courts already try plots. The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was built for cases in which the government wants to use classified evidence and a closed process. For 30 years attorneys general chose not to test it. Blanche chose to test it on a green-card holder who waived the fight.

Blanche called the result "a win for national security and the rule of law." Civil-liberties lawyers will read the same file as a proof that a dormant statute can be pointed at a person who was never put in front of a jury. The next petition, if there is one, will show whether Friday was a one-off or a template.

Haji Zada is now in Afghanistan. The court that sent her there is no longer theoretical.