We Shouldn’t Strip U.S. Terrorists of Citizenship
Hoda Muthana belongs in a U.S. prison, not a Syrian refugee camp.
Charles Swift, one of Hoda Muthana’s lawyers, faces a tough fight.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
U.S.-born Hoda Muthana should be in an American prison for joining Islamic State, the caliphate that terrorized, murdered and raped innocent civilians. Instead, she and her 2-year-old son are stuck in a refugee camp in Syria — because the U.S. government, relying on a technicality, has stripped her of her passport and told her that she and her son are not citizens. A federal judge has just held that government had the authority to do so.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for Muthana. But the judge’s decisions, and the government’s before that, set a terrible precedent for others whom the government might try to strip of their citizenship in the future. A person who reasonably believes she was born a citizen, and has been issued a passport on that understanding by the government, should be treated as a citizen unless she has lied to get that passport in the first place.