An Alabama woman who left home to join the Islamic State group in Syria is not a U.S. citizen and will not be allowed to return to the United States, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo claimed that Hoda Muthana, who says she made a mistake in joining the group and now wants to return with her 18-month-old son, has no 'legal basis' to claim American citizenship. He said in a brief statement that the 24-year-old does not have a U.S. passport. Pompeo's statement offered no details as to how the determination was reached. 'Ms Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States,' Pompeo said. '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.' The statement contradicts those made by Muthana and her family's attorney, who say she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey and raised in Hoover, Alabama. Hoda Muthana, who says she made a mistake in joining ISIS and now wants to return with her 18-month-old son, has no 'legal basis' to claim American citizenship, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. She is pictured during an ABC interview on Wednesday Muthana, who left America four years ago to join ISIS, has previously been issued two U.S. passports - one when she was a child and another in 2014. An attorney for her family, Hassan Shibly, said the U.S. government is trying to base their position on a 'complicated' interpretation of the law involving her father because he was a Yemeni diplomat. 'They're claiming her dad was a diplomat when she was born, which, in fact, he wasn't,' Shibly said. Most people born in the United States are given so-called birthright citizenship. But under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a person born in the U.S. to a foreign diplomatic officer is not subject to U.S. law and is not automatically considered a U.S. citizen at birth. Shibly said Muthana was born in 1994 in Hackensack, New Jersey. He claims that Muthana's father was discharged from his United Nations post one month before his daughter was born, which means the exception to the law is not valid in her case. Pompeo said Hoda, who left home to join the Islamic State group in Syria, is not a U.S. citizen and will not be allowed to return to the United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a brief statement that the 24-year-old does not have a U.S. passport. Pompeo's statement offered no details as to how the determination was reached Meanwhile, a British teen who joined ISIS in Syria had her UK citizenship revoked on Wednesday. Shamima Begum, who travelled to Syria in 2015 and now wants to return to Britain after giving birth in a refugee camp in Syria last week, said she was shocked by the government decision. Prior to Pompeo's statement, Muthana said in an interview with ABC News earlier on Wednesday that she hoped the U.S. government would pay for her to undergo therapy if she was allowed to return. 'I'm a normal human being who has been manipulated,' she said. 'I hope America doesn't think I am a threat to them and I hope they accept me...I hope they excuse me because of how young and ignorant I was.' Asked what she would expect as a reasonable form of punishment for joining ISIS, she said: 'Maybe therapy lessons, maybe a process that will ensure us that we'll never do this again. Hoda's first husband was Australian extremist Suhan Abdul Rahman who was killed in battle in Syria 'Jail time, I don't know if that has an effect on people. I need help mentally as well, I don't have the ideology any more but I am just traumatized by my experience.' She added that she cries herself to sleep 'almost every night' at the thought of being put behind bars. 'I know that when I do get back I probably will be sentenced to jail for I don't know how much time.' Looking at her son, she said: 'Thinking that my last few moments with him is stuck in a prison before another prison...' The lawyer said Muthana is putting herself at risk by speaking out against ISIS from a refugee camp where she has lived since fleeing the group a few weeks ago. Muthana, who dodged sniper fire and roadside bombs to escape, is ready to pay the penalty for her actions but wants freedom and safety for the son she had with one of two IS fighters she wed, he said. Both men were killed in combat. In a handwritten letter released by Shibly, Muthana wrote that she made 'a big mistake' by rejecting her family and friends in the United States to join the Islamic State. 'During my years in Syria I would see and experience a way of life and the terrible effects of war which changed me,' she wrote. Prior to Pompeo's statement, Muthana said in an interview with ABC News earlier on Wednesday that she hoped the U.S. government would pay for her to undergo therapy if she was allowed to return After fleeing her home in suburban Birmingham, Alabama in late 2014 and resurfacing in Syria, Muthana used social media to advocate violence against the United States. In the letter, Muthana wrote that she didn't understand the importance of freedoms provided by the United States at the time. 'To say that I regret my past words, any pain that I caused my family and any concerns I would cause my country would be hard for me to really express properly,' the letter said. Shibly said Muthana was brainwashed online before she left Alabama and now could have valuable intelligence for U.S. forces, but he said the FBI didn't seem interested in retrieving her from the refugee camp where she is living with her son. Muthana's father would welcome the woman back, Shibly said, but she is not on speaking terms with her mother. In her ABC interview, Hoda gave a confusing explanation for why she initially fled her parents' home to join ISIS, saying that it was because she wanted a more 'Americanized life'. 'I had a good relationship with my family but I wanted a more Americanized life. I just wanted to go out, I wanted to have, like, friends, go to places. I didn't get any of that. 'The only way out for me was to become practicing... to become more religious,' she said. Before she fled, she was part of a network of young Muslims who used Twitter to soak up extremist ideas. She said they were brainwashed and interpreted what they were told by predatory ISIS members 'very wrong.' The young mother also described how she chose her three husbands, two of whom were killed in battle, by selecting them from a list.All rights reserved for this news site dailymail and under his responsibility