DOJ asking secretive court to deport Afghan woman allegedly tied to ISIS-linked plot, in first-ever test case
The Justice Department is seeking to convince a federal judge to deport a Texas-based Afghan woman who prosecutors allege is an “alien terrorist,” it revealed Wednesday, in the first-ever test case before a secretive court that has never convened since it was created three decades ago.
Nazira Haji Zada, 47, of Fort Worth, Texas, will appear Thursday morning in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in Washington, D.C., where a judge will hear evidence from the Justice Department over whether she should be removed from the United States, according to the Justice Department and court filings. The government is accusing her of links to a foiled Islamic State-inspired terrorist plot to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day in 2024.
“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,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Zada has never been publicly charged by the government with any crimes of terrorism, and has no known criminal history, according to the government.
Last year, her son Abdullah Haji Zada and son-in-law Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi each pleaded guilty in a federal court in Oklahoma to purchasing two AK-47 style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition from an undercover FBI agent as part of an alleged plot targeting the 2024 election in support of the Islamic State.
At the time of his arrest in 2024, Zada’s son was only 17. He was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to gun crimes when he was 18. Tawhedi pleaded guilty to terrorism and gun offenses.
In an unclassified FBI summary filed in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, the government alleged that Zada “supported” her son and son-in-law’s conspiracy. The FBI also alleged she “pledged loyalty to ISIS” and “worked to indoctrinate her children with ISIS ideology,” citing information from a “reliable source.”
“Nazira worked with Tawhedi to radicalize the family and to conceal their pro-ISIS teaching and planned family relocation to ISIS-controlled territory from her unsuspecting husband,” the FBI wrote.
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was created by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It was set up to deport noncitizens who could not be removed by the traditional legal process because the information about their cases was classified and could not be made public for national security reasons.
The targets of noncitizen terrorist removal proceedings — including legal permanent residents — are not permitted to review the classified evidence against them, and unlike in criminal proceedings, they are barred from legally challenging how the evidence was collected by the government.
Applications for removal must be certified by the attorney general and are reviewed by the court ex parte and in camera — meaning the target of the deportation proceeding is not a party to the hearing.
If the application is accepted, it moves to the removal stage and a public hearing is conducted. As part of that, the Justice Department also releases an unclassified summary of the case, as it did in a newly created website for the court that was only launched on July 17.
Until July 15, when the Justice Department first filed its removal application against Zada, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court had been a “zombie” court that existed only on paper. It had never been used before, and prior efforts by the Justice Department earlier on after its creation to find a test case failed.
The court is structured similarly to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, another secret court that reviews sensitive requests for surveillance warrants. All five of its judges also sit on the FISC and are appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, who sits on the federal bench in Minnesota, is the chief judge of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, and will preside over Zada’s public removal hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., at 11 a.m. ET Thursday.
Zada has a green card, according to publicly unsealed court records. Under the rules of the court, lawful permanent residents are afforded the right to government-appointed counsel — though that attorney may not share classified evidence with the defendant.
According to court filings, her spouse was employed at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2016, and was granted a green card under a program for Afghans who assisted U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan.
CBS News could not immediately determine who may represent Zada at her removal hearing on Thursday.
CBS News has reached out to the defense attorney who represented her son in his criminal case in the Western District of Oklahoma, where the original case was brought.
Tawhedi and Abdullah Haji Zada were arrested on Oct. 7, 2024, after purchasing the firearms and ammunition from the undercover agent.
Abdullah Haji Zada, who was also a green card-holder like his mother, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In his plea deal, he consented to being deported to Afghanistan after serving his sentence and acknowledged his lawful permanent resident status would be revoked.
Tawhedi, 28, pleaded guilty on June 13, 2025, to conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State.
Both were accused of conspiring to relocate their female and juvenile male family members, including Nazira Zada, to Islamic State-controlled territory in Afghanistan while their alleged Election Day plot was carried out.
