Justice Department uses dormant terror court to seek Afghan woman's deportation

The Justice Department has asked a little-used federal tribunal to deport Nazira Haji Zada, a 47-year-old Afghan woman living in Fort Worth, Texas, in the first known petition ever filed in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Court records identify the matter as 2026-TRC-1 and cite 8 U.S.C. § 1533 as the legal basis for the request.

The case is a major precedent because Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in 1996 specifically to make it easier for the government to use classified evidence in deportation proceedings involving alleged alien terrorists. For roughly three decades, the court remained dormant and had never received a petition until this filing. The court’s website says the chief justice of the United States designates five district judges to serve on the panel, and Joan N. Ericksen of the District of Minnesota is listed as the presiding judge.

Zada has been detained in Enforcement and Removal Operations facilities nationwide since January 2026, according to an unclassified ICE declaration. An unclassified summary dated July 15, 2026, says she is the subject of an FBI national security investigation. In the case docket, the court granted a motion to set an initial hearing and also granted motions to seal the government’s application and supplemental classified materials.

Those sealed filings put civil-liberties concerns and due-process questions at the center of the first test of the court. The special tribunal was built to handle cases where the government wants to rely on classified evidence, but the first petition will show how much of that evidence can stay hidden while the respondent still has a meaningful chance to contest the allegations. That question is especially sharp because the government is using a court that has never before been asked to act.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the move in the Justice Department announcement, saying, "Congress created the court to remove alien terrorists who never should have been in the United States." The filing makes clear that the administration sees the dormant court as the proper forum for a national-security deportation case that may not fit cleanly within ordinary immigration proceedings.

Because the court had never been used before, 2026-TRC-1 will set the first practical template for how future national-security deportation cases can be built around sealed evidence, classified filings and a tribunal Congress left on the books for nearly 30 years.