Woman who joined ISIS in 2014 wants to come home to Alabama

A former ISIS bride is requesting that the United States allow her to return to her home state of Alabama from a Syrian refugee camp.

Hoda Muthana ran away from her home in Alabama at 20 years old to join the Islamic State, even having a child with one of the soldiers. Joining the group in 2014, Muthana said she was brainwashed by online traffickers and regrets all of her decisions, beside having her child, according to Yahoo! News.

"It's basically like the same day on repeat, for four years," Muthana said of life inside camp, adding that "the only different thing is your child is growing," she added.

“If I need to sit in prison, and do my time, I will do it ... I won’t fight against it,” she said in a recent interview.

However, in 2015, Muthana was rather enthusiastic about joining ISIS, posting online about burning her passport and encouraging others to commit terrorist attacks in America.

"Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades..go on drive by’s + spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n drive all over them. Kill them,” Muthana tweeted.

In 2016, President Obama's administration cancelled her citizenship, stating her father was an accredited Yemeni diplomat, according to Yahoo! News.

Muthana attempted to return to the United States in 2019, but then President Trump rejected her request in a simple tweet.

"I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!"

In early 2022, the Supreme Court declined to consider her lawsuit to reenter the United States.

Muthana proved her citizenship with a birth certificate in several interviews in 2019, telling reporters she never hated America in some exchanges. Muthana also appeared in a headscarf in the 2019 interviews but chose not to wear one in a 2023 interview from inside the camp.

"It still is a little scary here as well, there are still women here who support ISIS and they do report everything to ISIS," Muthana said.

"I still believe I'm a citizen now," she explained when asked about the revocation of her documents.

"One of the worst feelings I've ever had was someone telling me I wasn't an American citizen."

Born in New Jersey to Yemini immigrants, Muthana was raised as a conservative Muslim in Hoover, Alabama.

She told her family she was going on a school trip in 2014 but instead flew to Turkey to then cross into Syria to join ISIS. She paid for her travel by cashing her tuition checks.