Coverage spread: 2 sources — 2 left
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First-ever hearing in a 30-year-old court
On Thursday, Nazira Haji Zada, a 47-year-old lawful permanent resident from Fort Worth, Texas, became the first person in history to appear before the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC), a special federal tribunal created by Congress in 1996 but never used until now. The hearing took place in Washington, D.C., before Chief Judge Joan Ericksen, a George W. Bush appointee who normally sits as a federal district judge in Minnesota. As the court clerk formally announced the session was underway, Ericksen noted that the case was the first to test a court that had lain “dormant and untested for three decades,” and acknowledged the court still lacks basic infrastructure such as an electronic filing system.
Haji Zada was arrested earlier in the week and appeared in court wearing a cream-colored head covering, relying on interpreters to follow the proceedings. She is represented by federal public defenders Matthew Farley and Mary Petras, who have security clearances required to view classified evidence against her. The Justice Department, represented by Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hayden O’Byrne, filed an application on July 15 seeking her removal from the country, describing her as “the matriarch of an alien Afghan family.”
The allegations
Prosecutors allege Haji Zada helped “radicalize” family members, including her then-teenage son and her son-in-law, to support the Islamic State group. She has not been charged with any crime and has no criminal history. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada — who was 17 at the time of his 2024 arrest — and her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, previously pleaded guilty in 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 to attack Election Day 2024 in support of ISIS. The government has also noted in filings that Haji Zada’s husband — described as “unsuspecting” and without knowledge of any plot — had worked at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2016 before the family emigrated to the United States.
How the removal court works
The ATRC allows the government to seek deportation of noncitizens, including green card holders, by designating them “alien terrorists” under a lower evidentiary standard than would be required for a criminal conviction. Ericksen emphasized that the proceeding is civil, not criminal. Unlike in criminal court, targets cannot view the classified evidence against them or challenge how that evidence was obtained. Green card holders like Haji Zada do receive somewhat greater protections than other noncitizens, including government-appointed counsel with security clearance. Any appeal would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Defense objections and the judge’s response
Farley immediately challenged the legitimacy of the process, telling Ericksen that “this entire scheme is in violation of due process and unconstitutional.” According to NBC News, he argued the approach violated Haji Zada’s rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and both CBS News and NBC News quote him describing the mechanism as “a runaround of bringing a criminal case” that lets the government sidestep the higher evidentiary bar of a criminal prosecution. Farley also told the judge he had been researching the sparse legal literature on the ATRC — prompting Ericksen to quip that he had probably read the same law review articles as her, joking there weren’t many to find. Farley asked for his client’s immediate release, but Ericksen denied that request, though she indicated the broader constitutional challenges and detention questions would be taken up at a future hearing.
How the coverage compares
CBS News and NBC News both center their reporting on the same core facts — the historic first use of the ATRC, Farley’s due-process objections, and the underlying ISIS-plot allegations against Haji Zada’s son and son-in-law — but differ somewhat in emphasis. NBC News provides more granular procedural detail, including the exact date of the DOJ’s removal application (July 15), the specific constitutional amendments Farley cited, the appeals pathway to the D.C. Circuit, and the government’s characterization of Haji Zada’s husband and his employment history at Bagram Air Base. CBS News places more emphasis on the structural unfairness of the court itself — noting the absence of an electronic filing system, the inability of targets to review classified evidence or contest how it was gathered, and the broader history of the court being established in 1996 specifically for cases involving classified national-security information that couldn’t be publicly disclosed. Both outlets agree on the substance of Farley’s objections and the judge’s decision to deny immediate release while reserving other issues for later hearings.
Why it matters
Because this is the tribunal’s inaugural case, the outcome could set a significant precedent for how the U.S. government uses a decades-old, previously untested legal mechanism to seek deportation based on classified evidence and a lower burden of proof than a criminal trial requires — even against green card holders who have never been criminally charged. Legal scholars have long debated the court’s constitutionality, and NBC News notes that whether the Trump administration’s attempt to remove Haji Zada to Afghanistan can withstand legal scrutiny remains an open question that future hearings are expected to address.
Sources
Featured photo: Michael Barera via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)