On September 11, 2026, the Justice Department announced that it had deported Nazira Haji Zada, a 47-year-old Afghan lawful permanent resident living in Texas, in the first case ever brought in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Congress created the court in 1996. No administration of either party had used it in the 30 years since.
Attorney General Todd Blanche personally certified the removal application on July 15. It was filed July 30, Zada appeared that day before Chief Judge Joan N. Ericksen, the removal order was signed August 20, and she was removed August 25. The department unsealed the matter on September 11, after she had already left the country. She is permanently barred from returning.
She was never criminally charged. The department alleged she was the “matriarch” of an ISIS-sympathizing family and supported a plot by her son and son-in-law to carry out a mass shooting in Oklahoma on Election Day 2024. That underlying plot was real: both men were arrested in October 2024, and her son was sentenced to 15 years. Her residency derived from her husband's work for the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base between 2009 and 2016, and she was admitted as a permanent resident in 2018. Court filings say she spoke Dari, understood little English, and could not read or write.
What distinguishes this court is its procedure. It applies a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard rather than the criminal standard, and it permits the government to prove its case with classified evidence the respondent and the respondent's lawyers cannot see. CBS News described the mechanism: “The targets of the court's noncitizen terrorist removal proceedings, including legal permanent residents, are not permitted to review the classified evidence against them. And unlike criminal proceedings, targets are barred from legally challenging how the evidence was collected by the government.” The department confirmed it “used classified information to establish that Zada is an alien terrorist.”
Blanche called it “a win for national security and the rule of law,” adding that “this first-ever case before the ATRC shows how the Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect our country.” FBI Director Kash Patel called it “a historic and vitally important step.”
Her federal public defenders had challenged the court's constitutionality on due-process grounds before she agreed to removal. “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,” they said, predicting the court “will be struck down as unconstitutional as soon as a judge is asked to address the issue.” They said her decision to consent “should not be seen as an endorsement of this court's legitimacy.”
Because she consented and waived appeal, no judge ruled on whether the tribunal is constitutional. As Military.com put it, “Since Zada agreed to removal, those questions were never resolved, leaving the court's procedures legally untested even after its first completed case.”