Hoda Muthana found out the hard way that jihad always looks greener on the other side of the fence. And ever since 2019, she has been trying to find a way back into the United States, despite her social media history and status as an “ISIS bride.”

If you’ve forgotten this story, then here is a brief recap. Hoda Muthana was born in the United States to a Yemeni diplomat. At the time of her birth, she was given birthright citizenship. In 2014, she arrived in Syria, after having been radicalized online and leaving her family in Alabama. There, she married three times (the first two husbands are dead because, well, ISIS fighters have a short life expectancy), had one child, and is now sitting in a Syrian refugee camp, unable to come back to the life she left because she burned all her bridges on her way out.

Not that she hasn’t tried. But the road back to the United States has been blocked by a rare bipartisan effort. It was the Obama State Department that stripped Hoda Muthana of her citizenship back in 2016, having ruled that as the child of a diplomat, she was not entitled to birthright citizenship. The Trump administration upheld that decision and refused to let Muthana back into the country, despite her family suing to have her citizenship reinstated. In January 2022, the Supreme Court refused to hear her case regarding her citizenship, effectively upholding the lower court ruling that Muthana is not a citizen of the United States – and, by extension, neither is her son. And yes, her lawyers were working to extend her citizenship to her son, because if her citizenship was reinstated, then her son would have been the child of a citizen, and therefore a citizen himself.

So all Hoda Muthana has left is her son and no country of origin. Her father was specifically told that he cannot financially support her because it would be considered sending aid to terrorists. Muthana’s only hope? Go to the media and call herself a victim. Because, even though she cashed out her tuition checks and went to Syria to join ISIS, and had a looooooooong social media history of supporting ISIS and the jihad, she was really just young and stupid and didn’t realize that she was a victim of ISIS.

In a rare interview from the Roj detention camp in Syria where she is being held by US-allied Kurdish forces, Hoda Muthana said she was brainwashed by online traffickers into joining the group in 2014 and regrets everything except her young son, now of pre-school age.”

“If I need to sit in prison, and do my time, I will do it. … I won’t fight against it,” the 28-year-old told The News Movement. “I’m hoping my government looks at me as someone young at the time and naive.”

It’s a line she’s repeated in various media interviews since fleeing from one of the extremist group’s last enclaves in Syria in early 2019.”

And what about her social media love for ISIS?

In her interview with TNM, Muthana now says her phone was taken from her and that the tweets were sent by IS supporters.”

Hoda Muthana wants to now help other ISIS victims, she says – so long as she can do it in the United States, even if she has to go to prison first. But it needs to be a United States prison cell. And of course, her now 5 year old son can’t go to prison with her, so he would probably have to go to her family in Alabama. Right?

Speaking with TNM, she describes how, after arriving in Syria in 2014, she was detained in a guest house reserved for unmarried women and children. “I’ve never seen that kind of filthiness in my life, like there was 100 women and twice as much kids, running around, too much noise, filthy beds,” she said.”

The only way to escape was to marry a fighter. She eventually married and remarried three times. Her first two husbands, including the father of her son, were killed in battle. She reportedly divorced her third husband.”

The extremist group, which is also known as ISIS, no longer controls any territory in Syria or Iraq but continues to carry out sporadic attacks and has supporters in the camps themselves. Muthana says she still has to be careful about what she says because of fear of reprisal.”

“Even here, right now, I can’t fully say everything I want to say. But once I do leave, I will. I will be an advocate against this,” she said. “I wish I can help the victims of ISIS in the West understand that someone like me is not part of it, that I as well am a victim of ISIS.”

Hassan Shibly, an attorney who has assisted Muthana’s family, said it is “absolutely clear that she was brainwashed and taken advantage of.”

He said her family wishes she could come back, pay her debt to society and then help others from “falling into the dark path that she was led down.”

“She was absolutely misguided, and no one is denying that. But again, she was a teenager who was the victim of a very sophisticated recruitment operation that focuses on taking advantage of the young, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised,” he said.”

The interview with Hoda Muthana can be watched here:

OF COURSE, she wants to come back and serve time in an American prison. OF COURSE, she wants to keep portraying herself as young and stupid when she ran off eight years ago to Syria. OF COURSE, she wants to point a finger at someone else using her phone and accounts to proclaim her loyalty to ISIS. Here’s the problem – her legal fight is over. The Obama State Department made a ruling. The courts and the Trump administration have upheld it. Just because we have repatriated, tried, and sentenced American citizens who went full ISIS jihad doesn’t mean we have to accept Hoda Muthana and her son into the country.

That Hoda Muthana is still sitting in a Syrian refugee camp speaks loudly to the consequences of her actions. In theory, as the daughter of a former Yemeni diplomat, she would have been a citizen of Yemen. Her court case in the United States could have been pursued on her behalf while she was in Yemen, just as it has been while she is in Syria. So, why hasn’t she gone to Yemen? Certainly there could be some family there who could help? Or maybe she and her lawyers thought she would look more sympathetic in the refugee camp? Or – most likely – Yemen doesn’t want her either.

Hoda Muthana is an object lesson for those willing to look and listen. Sometimes you can say you are sorry, and beg to be punished, and no one is obligated to hear you out or punish you. Some choices can’t be fixed or get to be undone. So, make good choices. Hoda Muthana made bad ones, and her punishment isn’t an American jail cell, but the prison of her own making.

Featured image: Hoda Muthana in CBS interview in 2019 (screenshot via CBS This Morning on YouTube)