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A federal court that had been dormant since its creation three decades ago held its first public hearing in Washington on Thursday, as a prosecutor and public defender argued over the first steps in deportation proceedings for a woman from Afghanistan who is alleged to be an Islamic State adherent.
It is the first case to be heard by the Alien Terrorist Removal Court since it was established by Congress in 1996, and it quickly raised a host of complex questions about due process and access to classified evidence.
Although the court was envisioned as a tool to quickly remove suspected terrorists without revealing too much classified information, past administrations never attempted to bring a case.
The Trump administration since last year has ramped up efforts to deport migrants through any legal avenues. Justice Department officials said they are using the specialized court for the first time in history partly because it allows for the deportation of dangerous individuals without having to disclose "sensitive classified information in a traditional removal proceeding."
In court records unsealed Wednesday, the Justice Department alleged that Nazira Haji Zada, a lawful permanent resident from Fort Worth, played an active role in an unsuccessful plot by her son and son-in-law to carry out a mass shooting inspired by the Islamic State on Election Day in 2024.
The son, Abdullah Haji Zada, who was 17 years old at the time of his arrest in 2024, pleaded guilty to a terrorism offense involving a firearm and is serving a 15-year prison sentence. He has agreed to be deported to Afghanistan after completing his term. The son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 28, has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges including conspiring to provide support to the Islamic State and is awaiting sentencing.
The Justice Department described Nazira Haji Zada, 47, as the "matriarch" of the group. She was arrested this week by federal agents and appeared in court Thursday, nodding or giving brief responses to the judge through an interpreter.
The government alleged Haji Zada went along with plans to move back to Afghanistan along with other female relatives while the two men stayed behind in the United States to carry out the mass shooting on the day of the 2024 fall elections. Her son and son-in-law were arrested in October of that year.
In an unclassified court filing, U.S. officials said Haji Zada also worked with Tawhedi "to radicalize the family and to conceal their pro-ISIS teaching." All the while, she was hiding their plans from her "unsuspecting husband," prosecutors said.
"She has formally pledged loyalty to ISIS," a prosecutor, Hayden O'Byrne, said at the hearing Thursday.
A federal public defender, Matthew Farley, asked for Haji Zada's immediate release. He argued the court's untested procedures were fundamentally unfair for the accused and infringed on Haji Zada's rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments.
"This entire scheme is in violation of due process and unconstitutional," Farley argued at the hearing.
"This is a runaround to bringing a criminal case," he added.
Little information was revealed in court about Haji Zada's life or time in the United States, but the case is expected to delve into a bevy of legal and factual issues over the next months.
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court's chief judge, Joan N. Ericksen, normally sits as a federal district judge in Minnesota. The five judges who serve on the Alien Terrorist Removal Court are designated by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court does not hear criminal cases, only civil matters focused on whether to deport certain individuals who are accused of having terrorist ties. The government faces a lower evidentiary burden than it would in a criminal case.
The terrorist removal court requires a preponderance of the evidence to authorize a deportation, which is a lower legal standard than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The court's rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Thursday's hearing mostly resembled proceedings in federal court, though it ran into some first-day jitters such as screeching microphone feedback, a telephone ringing loudly on the speakers, questions about how to file documents on the court's docket and novel arguments about the defense team's ability to access classified evidence under the court's special rules.
"This is the court's first case, and the court is in the first stages of developing an infrastructure," Ericksen said at the outset of the hearing. She said she would proceed with "exactness, carefulness, circumspection and fealty to the Constitution."
The judge said defense attorneys "have a right to review the classified information" and that she was inclined to follow the "CIPA model," a reference to the strict procedures for handling classified evidence in federal district courts, as outlined in the Classified Information Procedures Act.
The judge said she would confer in private with attorneys for both sides before setting further court dates, including a hearing in the coming days on whether to hold Haji Zada in detention as the case plays out, and a final removal hearing contemplated under the 1996 federal law establishing the court.
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