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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World

ISIS bride Hoda Muthana who fled to Syria says she'll have 'no problem' returning to US

ISIS bride Hoda Muthana says she'll have 'no problem' returning to US (Picture: NBC News)

A woman who left the United States to join the Islamic State in Syria says she thinks she will have "no problem" returning to the US.

Hoda Muthana, 24, who is from Alabama, is staying in a refugee camp with her 18-month-old son after fleeing the remnants of the caliphate.

Despite the Trump administration insisting that she won't be allowed back, Muthana told NBC News she will have no problem returning to the country after leaving in 2014.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that the young woman is not a citizen and will not be admitted to the country. He was instructed by US president Donald Trump not to allow her back.

The announcement came a day after Britain said that it was stripping the citizenship of 19-year-old Shamima Begum, who left the UK in 2015 to join the Islamic State.

ISIS bride Hoda Muthana says she'll have 'no problem' returning to US (NBC News)

Muthana and her family are now suing the Trump administration in an effort to allow her to return.

In an interview with NBC's Richard Engel, Muthana said: "I know in fact that I was a citizen. When I tried filing for a passport it was very easy. It came in 10 days.

"So I thought I didn't have a problem and I'm sure there is no problem and I know my lawyer hopefully is working on it and he will win the case."

Speaking in the al-Houl camp in northeast Syria, Muthana told NBC she fears for her life from other ISIS wives who might take reprisals against her for speaking out against the group.

Muthana described herself as a former Islamic “radical” who has changed her beliefs and deeply regrets travelling to ISIS territory.

Hoda Muthana, 24, left the US to join the Islamic State in Syria in 2014 (AP)

When asked what she expects will happen if she is allowed to return to the US, Muthana replied: "Of course I’ll be given jail time."

Her lawyers said in a statement that she expects to be charged with providing material support to terrorism if she is allowed to return.

"Ms Muthana has publicly acknowledged her actions and accepted full responsibility for those actions," the lawyers said.

"In Ms Muthana's words, she recognises that she has 'ruined' her own life, but she does not want to ruin the life of her young child."

Hassan Shibly, attorney for Hoda Muthana (AP)

The family and their lawyers say they were told that the US determined she did not qualify for citizenship because her father was a Yemeni diplomat at the time of her birth.

But the family argues her father ceased to be a diplomat before she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, and that she had a legitimate passport when she left the US in Syria in 2014.

The Obama administration initially determined she was not a citizen and notified her family that it was revoking her passport in January 2016.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a person born in the US to an accredited foreign diplomatic officer is not subject to US law and is not automatically considered a US citizen at birth.

The full interview will air tonight on NBC News.

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