President Trump’s Justice Department has now done something no administration managed to do in the 30 years since Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. It brought the court to life. And at the court’s first-ever public hearing Thursday, the judge rejected an immediate bid to release the Afghan woman at the center of the historic case. No final deportation order came Thursday. The legal fight is only beginning. But the long-dormant court is no longer a theory buried in the federal code. The Trump administration is putting it to work against a lawful permanent resident whom federal officials accuse of supporting an ISIS-inspired Election Day mass-shooting plot. The Justice Department announced the unprecedented filing and identified the woman as Nazira Haji Zada, 47, of Fort Worth, Texas: Department of Justice Files First Case in U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court to Deport Afghan Alien Who Supported Her Family’s Plans for Election-Day Shooting “Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court three decades ago to remove from the United States alien terrorists… pic.twitter.com/NPaO1BRInH — U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) July 30, 2026 Zada is the mother and mother-in-law of two Afghan men already convicted for their roles in the thwarted 2024 plot. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, were arrested after buying two AK-47-style rifles, 500 rounds of ammunition and 10 magazines from an undercover FBI employee, according to federal records. Prosecutors say the weapons were intended for a mass-casualty attack on or around Election Day on behalf of ISIS. Abdullah, who was 17 when arrested, pleaded guilty as an adult and received the maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison. Tawhedi pleaded guilty to terrorism and firearms offenses and is awaiting sentencing. The allegations against Nazira go beyond her family relationship to the two convicted men. The Justice Department says Zada supported the planned attack and helped prepare the family’s exit from the country. Federal officials allege the family sold furniture, computers, a phone, two vehicles and the family home while buying one-way tickets to Afghanistan for Zada and several children shortly before the planned shooting. The department says the two convicted men were not included on those tickets. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche described Zada as the matriarch of an ISIS-sympathizing family who allegedly aided a plan to attack American voters. FBI Director Kash Patel called the filing a historic step and said the government would use every available resource to protect Americans. Those are serious allegations, and the government will have to prove them. The unclassified summary filed in the case offered the public its first look at the accusations: DOJ lodged the unclassified summary of its first Alien Terrorist Removal Court target, Nazira Haji Zara, a lawful permanent resident (green card) of Fort Worth, Texas. She is an alleged ISIS loyalist who supported a terrorist attack conspiracy in the U.S. by her son & son-in-law pic.twitter.com/pM8aEeI9bM — Aram Gavoor (@AramGavoor) July 29, 2026 The removal court exists for cases in which ordinary immigration proceedings could expose classified national-security information. Congress established it in 1996, but no administration had ever filed a case there before President Trump returned to office. The court is composed of five federal district judges appointed by the chief justice of the United States. The government may use classified evidence, but it must also produce an unclassified summary sufficient for the person facing removal to prepare a defense. The accused has a right to counsel, and either side may appeal the eventual decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Thursday’s hearing immediately tested those protections. CBS News reports that federal public defender Matthew Farley challenged the entire process as unconstitutional and asked Chief Judge Joan Ericksen to release Zada immediately. Ericksen denied that request, though the issue may return at a later detention hearing. The defense argued that the government is using a lower evidentiary standard than it would face in a criminal prosecution. Zada has not been charged with a terrorism crime, and much of the evidence against her remains classified. Ericksen pressed Justice Department lawyers to provide more detail and said she was operating under the presumption that security-cleared defense counsel would be allowed to review the classified material. She also said the government would need to explain why any specific evidence could not be disclosed. That exchange matters because it shows the court doing what a court is supposed to do: testing the government’s claims while keeping the case moving. The administration is not asking an immigration bureaucrat to make a secret decision and place someone on a plane. It is invoking a statute Congress passed, presenting evidence to an Article III judge and accepting judicial review. The final burden remains with the government. Under federal law, DOJ must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that Zada qualifies as an alien terrorist before the court may order her removal. If federal officials can prove that a lawful permanent resident supported an ISIS plot to murder Americans as they voted, the United States should not be forced to leave a lawful national-security tool unused merely because prior administrations never had the will to test it. President Trump promised to use the full lawful power of the federal government to protect the country. This case is the clearest sign yet that his Justice Department intends to follow through. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here. The post Trump DOJ’s First-Ever Terror Court Case Moves Forward After Judge Rejects Release Bid appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.