A woman with lawful-permanent-resident status has been deported to Afghanistan after conceding she was an “alien terrorist” in a secretive federal court that was established three decades ago but held its first hearing only this year, court records show.
The Justice Department alleged that Nazira Haji Zada, 47, supported her son and son-in-law as they planned a mass shooting inspired by the Islamic State, set for Election Day 2024. The plot was not carried out, and the two men were arrested and convicted of terrorism offenses.
Haji Zada, who resided in Fort Worth, was not charged with a crime. Although she agreed to be deported, her attorneys continued to assert that the process denied them access to classified evidence and infringed on key constitutional rights.
Her case was the first to be heard by the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, which Congress established in 1996 as an avenue to quickly remove suspected terrorists without airing too much classified information in public proceedings.
The case effectively ended with a plea bargain last month, according to court records unsealed Friday.
In a joint court filing dated Aug. 20, the Justice Department, Haji Zada and her attorneys agreed that she was an “alien terrorist” who would be deported and barred from returning, and that her admissions would not be used in criminal proceedings. The chief judge of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, who had held an initial hearing on the matter in late July, authorized the deportation the same day, court records show.
Attorney General Todd Blanche called it a “landmark case” and “a win for national security and the rule of law.”
“Those who support and condone terrorism should not be living in the United States, and this first-ever case before the ATRC shows how the Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect our country,” Blanche said in a statement.
Haji Zada’s federal public defenders said the government used classified evidence against her that was not shared with her defense team. That, and the court’s untested procedures, had deprived Haji Zada of her due process rights, they said.
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court allows the government to deport suspected terrorists based on a preponderance of the evidence, a lower evidentiary standard than the proof beyond a reasonable doubt used in criminal cases.
“Our client’s choice to consent to removal should not be seen as an endorsement of this court’s legitimacy,” public defenders Matthew Farley and Mary Manning Petras said in a statement.
“Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process. We are confident that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court will be struck down as unconstitutional as soon as a judge is asked to address the issue,” they said.
Haji Zada’s son, Abdullah Haji Zada, was 17 years old at the time of his arrest in 2024. He pleaded guilty to a terrorism offense involving a firearm and has acknowledged that he will be deported to Afghanistan after completing his 15-year prison 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 as the “matriarch” of the group. The government alleged she had made plans to move back to Afghanistan with other female relatives, selling the family home to raise funds for the trip, while the two men stayed behind in the United States to carry out the mass shooting. She did not ultimately make the trip, officials said.
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 in July, using an acronym referring to the Islamic State.
Farley and Petras said in a court filing that there was “no evidence that she sold the home for the purpose of funding an attack or knew that her son and son-in-law planned an attack.”
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