For 30 years, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court sat on a shelf. Congress built it in 1996 specifically to handle deportation cases involving classified national security evidence — intelligence too sensitive to reveal in open court but too important to ignore. Five administrations came and went. Not one case was ever filed.
The Trump DOJ filed the first one on July 15. On Thursday, it survived its first constitutional challenge. The terror court is open for business.
The defendant is Nazira Haji Zada, 47, a lawful permanent resident from Afghanistan living in Fort Worth, Texas. Federal prosecutors allege she is the matriarch of an ISIS-sympathizing family that planned a mass shooting on American voters on Election Day 2024. Her son Abdullah and son-in-law Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi have already pleaded guilty. Abdullah, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, received 15 years as an adult. Tawhedi is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and attempting to arm himself for a federal terrorism offense.
The two men were arrested on October 7, 2024 — one year to the day after Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis — after purchasing two AK-47-style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition from an undercover FBI agent. The weapons were intended for an attack targeting large crowds around Election Day.
Haji Zada herself was not criminally charged. The government is pursuing her removal through a civil immigration proceeding — exactly the type the ATRC was designed for. The DOJ alleges she indoctrinated her children with ISIS ideology, concealed their radicalization from her husband, and helped prepare the family to flee to Afghanistan immediately after the planned attack. The family sold furniture, computers, a phone, and two vehicles. A contract was signed to sell the family home. One-way tickets to Kabul were purchased for her and several children for a date shortly before Election Day.
Chief Judge Joan Ericksen refused to dismiss the case Thursday and denied a request to release Haji Zada from custody — handing the DOJ a critical early win. The court did require prosecutors to supplement their filing with a clearer connection to the terrorism provisions cited. The government complied. The court found it sufficient.
Acting AG Todd Blanche didn’t soften the framing: “The allegations in this case show the matriarch of an ISIS-sympathizing family aiding in a plot to launch a mass casualty attack.”
The defense called the entire proceeding unconstitutional — a “runaround” to avoid a criminal case. Judge Ericksen wasn’t buying it, though she left the door open for those arguments to be raised again as the case develops. The constitutional questions will be fully litigated in real time. That’s fine. That’s exactly what appellate courts are for.
What Thursday established is simpler: the ATRC works, the first case survived its first challenge, and a woman accused of helping plan an Election Day massacre is in custody in Washington D.C.
Congress built the court. Trump finally used it. Now it’s the left’s turn to explain why it shouldn’t exist.
