Turkey begins deporting ISIS fighters (including one American?)

The tyrant of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is making good on one of his recent promises. No longer willing to use his nation as “a hotel for terrorists” (as he put it), Erdogan ordered the deportation of captured ISIS fighters to their home nations beginning today. Few details were offered, though the majority of the initial deportees will apparently be heading to Germany. In addition, there is allegedly one American who was already deported today, though the identity of that person wasn’t initially disclosed. (Associated Press)

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Turkey says a U.S. national who is a member of the Islamic State group has been deported home as Ankara begins repatriating captured foreign IS fighters.

Interior Ministry’s spokesman Ismail Catakli also said on Monday that seven German nationals would be returned on Nov. 14. There was no immediate information on the IS suspects.

Turkey has over the past weeks criticized European nations for refusing to take back their nationals. It has vowed to send back IS militants — even if their citizenships have been revoked.

There’s no official word yet as to what Erdogan plans to do with all of the ISIS brides in Syria, including the one from Alabama who would like to be allowed to come back home. That situation isn’t going to be able to be kept on hold forever, however. At al Hol camp in northeastern Syria, there are literally thousands of ISIS brides and their children being held, many of whom still openly support the terror group and “pray for the return of the caliphate.”

Here’s what one charming child, ten years of age, told European reporters touring the camp. (Daily Mail, emphasis added)

‘We’re going to kill you by slaughtering you. We will slaughter you.’ A ten-year-old boy told Sky News. ‘God says, “Turn to Allah with sincere repentance in the hope that your Lord will remove you from your ills.”‘

Maybe it’s just me, but sending this kid and his mother (who obviously indoctrinated him into the whole “slaughter” thing) back to whatever country they came from is just asking for trouble at this point. These are future suicide bombers just waiting for a chance to cause mayhem.

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The problem facing the United States is the question of whether we want these people sent back to face justice. But even if we don’t want them back, can we really stop them from being deported back here? Several European nations have taken the proactive step of stripping their ISIS fighters of citizenship, but we’re in something of a gray area there. It’s not that easy to strip an American citizen of their citizenship, no matter how evil their actions have been.

It’s not impossible, of course. We’ve actually “denaturalized” more than 100 people over the past fifty years, but virtually all of them were naturalized citizens convicted of war crimes committed during World War 2.

Even native-born citizens can lose their citizenship under federal law, but it needs to have been a “voluntary” action. This can be accomplished in one of seven ways, and a few of them might apply to ISIS fighters. You can qualify by “formally declaring allegiance to a foreign government after age 18.” It’s arguable whether or not the ISIS caliphate qualified as “a foreign government” but they were certainly acting like one.

You can also renounce your citizenship by “joining the military force of another country.” But again, we’re back to the question of whether or not ISIS is or was “a country.” There’s another path that might be even easier in some cases, however. You can lose your status by “formally renouncing U.S. nationality abroad before a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer.” As the AP notes, many of these American Jihadis went on social media and filmed themselves burning their passports and dedicating themselves to the ISIS caliphate. If we can get a diplomatic or consular officer to view the videos, I wonder if that would count?

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Failing all that, I suppose we’ll have to take them back. Then we can either put them on trial for treason (a conviction for which also provides grounds to strip citizenship) or just toss them in Gitmo. Either way, this is going to turn out to be a messy situation.

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David Strom 6:00 PM | March 26, 2024
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