President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he wants to bar a woman who left the US four years ago to join ISIS from returning to the country, but the woman's lawyer and father say that the administration's stated justification for this decision — that she isn't a US citizen — is false.



Hoda Muthana, 24, left her home in Alabama in November 2014 and lived under ISIS control until she escaped to a Kurdish refugee camp six weeks ago, she told the Guardian on Sunday. BuzzFeed News exclusively profiled her after she arrived in ISIS-controlled territory in 2015.

She has an 18-month-old son, Adam, born during her second of three marriages to ISIS fighters. Hoda herself was born in New Jersey and has lived her entire life in the US.



In her interview with the Guardian, Muthana said that she wants to come home to the United States with her child and hopes that she will be allowed to return, even if it means serving jail time.



“I was really young and ignorant, and I was 19 when I decided to leave. I believe that America gives second chances. I want to return, and I’ll never come back to the Middle East. America can take my passport and I wouldn’t mind.”



The US government, however, said Wednesday that she is not a citizen. State Department officials said she was born while her father, who once represented Yemen in the United Nations, still had diplomatic status in the US.

"Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a US citizen and will not be admitted into the United States," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "She does not have any legal basis, no valid US passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States. We continue to strongly advise all US citizens not to travel to Syria."

Hours later, Trump followed up with a tweet saying, "I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!"