Trump INVOKES Unknow Deportation Law For The First Time Ever

U.S. immigration and naturalization documents with American flag — Photo: Pamela Au / Shutterstock

A dormant terrorism court, unused for thirty years, just held its first hearing to deport a Texas woman accused of plotting an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on Election Day.

Story Snapshot

The Department of Justice filed the first-ever petition to the Alien Terrorist Removal Court on July 15, 2026, targeting Nazira Haji Zada, 47, of Fort Worth, Texas.
Prosecutors accuse Haji Zada of taking part in a plot to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on Election Day 2024.
The court, created in 1996, had never received a single case before this filing, according to multiple outlets.
The first hearing took place July 30, 2026, with much of the underlying evidence still sealed from public view.

A Thirty-Year-Old Law Finally Gets Its First Test

Congress built the Alien Terrorist Removal Court back in 1996, right after the Oklahoma City bombing pushed lawmakers to close gaps in how the country handles suspected terrorists who are not citizens. For three decades, no administration ever filed a case with it. That changed this July when the Justice Department submitted a sealed petition asking the court to remove Haji Zada from the country.

The statute lets the government seek removal when the attorney general or deputy attorney general certifies that a noncitizen’s presence threatens national security and fits the legal definition of an “alien terrorist.” That includes membership in a designated terror group or actions that support terrorist activity. The court issued its first order in the case on July 16, one day after the filing landed, showing the petition cleared an early procedural hurdle.

Who Is Nazira Haji Zada

Court records identify Haji Zada as a 47-year-old Afghan woman living in Fort Worth. Prosecutors allege she took part in a plot tied to an ISIS-inspired mass shooting planned for Election Day in 2024, according to a reporter who covered the first hearing directly. Turkish outlet Anadolu Agency also named her as the respondent in what it called the first case ever heard by the decades-old court.

The Justice Department has leaned hard into the national-security framing. A spokesperson told Fox News the administration “will use every tool available to bring alien terrorists to justice and remove them from the United States, including by use of this court established by Congress in 1996”. That statement makes clear the government sees this case as a proof of concept for a tool it plans to keep using.

Why So Much of the Case Stays Behind Closed Doors

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court exists precisely for situations where the government’s evidence is classified. The Guardian, Axios, and other outlets note the filing was sealed and that the process allows the government to withhold sensitive material from public view while still pursuing removal. That secrecy protects intelligence sources, but it also means outside observers cannot yet check the government’s work line by line.

News coverage has spent nearly as much energy on the court’s novelty and secrecy as on the actual allegations against Haji Zada. CNN and Newsweek both frame the story around the “secretive” nature of the proceeding. That is fair context, but it should not overshadow the core allegation: a woman accused of helping plan a mass shooting timed to Election Day is now the test case for a statute Congress passed thirty years ago for exactly this kind of threat.

What Happens Next in the Proceedings

Legal experts expect challenges over how much evidence the government must disclose, since respondents in these cases typically receive only an unclassified summary rather than the full case file. The PBS NewsHour reported the government’s petition described the court as created to handle removals in exactly this kind of national-security setting. Whether Haji Zada’s defense can meaningfully contest sealed evidence will shape how future cases under this law get argued.

The government has activated the constitutioanlly dubious "Alien Terrorist Removal Court" for the first time in its 30 yrs of existence to speedrun the deportation Nazira Haji Zada to Afghanistan.

As with many repressive terrorism laws, @ADL was a key player in its creation. 🧵 https://t.co/cVfcPaGX1H

— darryl li (@dcli) July 30, 2026

For a court that sat unused for three decades, the stakes of this first case are high. If the process holds up, the administration gains a tested pathway for removing accused terrorists without exposing classified sources. If it draws successful legal challenges, the case could reshape how far the government can go in keeping terrorism evidence out of public court records.