A Court Created in 1996 Had Never Heard a Case. On Friday the Justice Department Used It to Deport an Afghan Grandmother From Texas.

The Justice Department announced Friday that it had deported an Afghan permanent resident from Texas through the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a special federal tribunal that Congress created in 1996 and that had never heard a single case in the 30 years since. Nazira Haji Zada, 47, was labeled an "alien terrorist" by the department and agreed to leave the country rather than continue fighting a proceeding in which she could not see the classified evidence against her.

Haji Zada is the mother of Abdullah Haji Zada and the mother-in-law of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, both of whom were convicted for plotting an ISIS-inspired mass shooting timed for Election Day in November 2024. The Justice Department alleged that she supported their plans and tried to steer her children toward the Islamic State. Prosecutors turned over roughly half a terabyte of documents to her legal team, but the core of the government's case rested on material that remained sealed.

That is the point of the court. The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was written into the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 to let the government remove noncitizens it considers terrorists when the evidence comes from intelligence sources that cannot be disclosed in open court. Unlike a criminal defendant, the target of an ATRC case cannot review the classified evidence and cannot challenge how it was gathered. A panel of federal district judges designated by the chief justice hears the case. For three decades the court existed on paper, with judges assigned and no docket, because successive administrations found ordinary immigration proceedings or criminal charges easier to use.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has pushed the department to use every available tool against people it links to terrorism, called the outcome "a win for national security." "Those who support and condone terrorism should not be living" in the United States, he said in a statement announcing the removal. The department did not say where Haji Zada was sent or whether she retained any right to return.

Civil liberties lawyers have warned for years that the ATRC's structure, in which the accused cannot confront the evidence, would face constitutional challenges the moment it was used. Haji Zada's decision to depart voluntarily means the first case ends without a ruling on those questions. The Justice Department's announcement came on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it signals that the administration intends to treat the court as an active option rather than a dormant one.