The US government is using the Alien Terrorist Removal Court for the first time to seek the deportation of Nazira Haji Zada, an Afghan woman accused of supporting an Islamic State-inspired plot. The case matters because the specialist court, created to handle suspected-terrorist removals while protecting national-security information, had remained unused for three decades.

Zada, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, was due to appear at a hearing in Washington, DC. The Justice Department alleges that she supported a planned mass-casualty attack on US voters during the 2024 election; her son received a 15-year prison sentence over the plot, while her son-in-law pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offences. The five-judge court was established in 1996, and much of the evidence in this case remains classified or sealed.