Hoover woman who joined ISIS can't return to U.S., secretary of state says

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo today said the young woman who left Hoover to join the militant Islamic group ISIS in late 2014 is not a U.S. citizen and will not be allowed back into the United States.

Hoda Muthana, who at age 19 tricked her Hoover family and went to join ISIS in Syria, recently fled her village in Syria and was captured by Kurdish forces and ended up in a refugee camp.

Now 24, she told ABC News she had been brainwashed by ISIS and has now renounced her radical ideology and wants to come back to the United States with her 18-month-old son.

But Pompeo said that’s not going to happen.

“She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States,” Pompeo said in a written statement. “We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria.”

Muthana told ABC News she is not the same person who abandoned her family in 2014. She now realizes she and other young people who fled the United States to join ISIS interpreted everything wrong, she said.

“I’m just a normal human being who has been manipulated once and hopefully never again,” she said. “When I go back, I will learn more, and I will try to help people not make the same mistakes that I have … I hope Americans don’t think I’m a threat to them, and I hope they can accept me.”