Muthana was married an Islamic State fighter in Syria and now wants to return to the United States with her 18-month-old son.
But the Trump administration has barred Muthana, 24, and her son from returning to the US, USA Today reported. Federal authorities contest her claim to US citizenship.
If the move by American federal authorities is successful, it could have far-reaching implications for American citizens all over the world.
Her father, Ahmed Ali Muthana, is a former diplomat at the United Nations for Yemen who became a naturalized US citizen. He has filed the lawsuit earlier this month on her behalf, seeking to overturn the Trump administration’s claim that she was never an American citizen in the first place.
Muthana’s father was a Yemeni diplomat at the time she was born, a technicality that would exempt her from claiming birthright citizenship. He has refuted this claim, saying that he has a document that he says proves his diplomatic service ended before his daughter was born.
But Trump officials are denying Muthana’s right to re-enter the country. The State Department’s opinion is also that “Americans can renounce their citizenship by their words and by their actions aligning with foreign powers”.
According to the State Department’s website however, there are strict rules about how someone can renounce their citizenship.
Muthana joined the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, after telling her parents she was going to Atlanta as part of a field trip.
Instead, she withdrew from college and used her tuition reimbursement to buy a plane ticket to Turkey. From Turkey, she traveled to Syria to join the ranks of the terrorist group.
While in Syria, she twice married ISIS fighters who were both later killed in combat. In December last year, she fled to a refugee camp, when ISIS lost control of large parts of its territory in Syria and Iraq.
Muthana is thought to be one of only two Americans of an estimated 1 500 foreign women and children being held at the al-Houl refugee camp in northeast Syria.