Mike Pompeo: ISIS bride Hoda Muthana 'is a terrorist' and has no right to be an ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday morning that Hoda Muthana, a woman known as an 'ISIS bride' for her decision to leave the U.S. and marry a terrorist fighter in Syria, is herself a terrorist and should never be allowed back on American soil.

'There are now over 800 terrorists that are being held, foreign terrorist fighters that are being held, in Syria today. She's just one of them. She is a terrorist,' Pompeo said on the 'Today' show.

'She's not a U.S. citizen. She ought not return to this country,' he said.

Muthana attorney Hassan Shibly told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that his client is a citizen because she was born in the U.S. He claimed the Trump administration is trying to make her a 'test case' to support the president's position that awarding birthright citizenship requires a misreading of the U.S. Constitution.  

'The Trump administration has been trying to limit birthright citizenship,' Shibly said, claiming the president will likely 'try to use' the case 'against a much broader group of Americans, mostly Latino Americans.'

Pompeo declared Thursday that Muthana's place of birth has no bearing on her citizenship, agreeing that her father's status as a foreign diplomat from Yemen placed her in a different category.

'That's right,' he said, responding to that scenario.  

'She may have been born here,' Pompeo said. 'She is not a U.S. citizen, nor is she entitled to U.S. citizenship.'

The secretary of state suggested that Muthana is in a Syrian refugee camp because the U.S. military has been effective in neutralizing the terrorist threat from the ISIS army.

'You have to remember the context. We've now taken down all but the last square inch of the caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Millions of people liberated by President Trump and our administration. The great work that our soldiers have done on the ground.' 

Shibly, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Florida chapter, told DailyMail.com that he will file a lawsuit Thursday morning against the U.S. government, demanding her safe repatriation. 

President Trump said Wednesday afternoon that he personally made the decision to bar the young woman who fled the U.S. to join ISIS in Syria from returning to the United States. 

'I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!' he tweeted. 

Muthana, who has an 18-month-old son, wants to submit herself to the justice system, her attorney has said, claiming she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey and raised in Hoover, Alabama. 

Diplomats' children are not entitled to U.S. birthright citizenship in the U.S. Shibly says her father had left his diplomatic post by the time of her birth and produced a letter from the U.S. Mission to the U.N. as evidence.

He told DailyMail.com that the Trump administration is trying to 'strip citizenship' from Muthana and 'they cannot do that without [a] process.'

Responding to a State Department spokesperson's suggestion that Muthana could have received a U.S. passport as a non-citizen, he said, 'That's garbage, literally garbage.'

He said Muthana has a Social Security Number and has always been and still is a U.S. citizen.

'Hoda is actually trying to engage the legal system and turn herself in,' he said, but Trump wants to push the problem out of the United States' jurisdiction. 'I think that's insane.'

Pompeo did not say Wednesday afternoon how the State Department reached its determination Muthana is not a citizen, and a spokesperson for the State Department did not provide clarification in an email exchange.

'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.'  

President Trump later took credit for the decision. Spokespersons for the White House were also unavailable for comment.

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.  

Her birth certificate, a copy of which was shared on Twitter her family lawyer and was not independently verified by DailyMail.com, shows that she was born Oct. 28, 1994 in Hackensack, New Jersey. 

A State Department spokesperson did not address Shibly's claims directly but told DailyMail.com over email that Muthana 'was not born a U.S. citizen and she has never been a U.S. citizen' even though she was born in the United States.

'Passport applicants must establish their identity, citizenship and entitlement to a U.S. passport,' the person said. 'However, there are many reasons that an individual previously issued a passport may subsequently be found ineligible for that passport.'

For instance: 'If it is determined that the bearer was not entitled to the issued passport, the passport may be revoked and/or a renewal application denied.

'Ms. Muthana’s citizenship has not been revoked because she was never a US citizen,' the person stressed.

In the United States birthright citizenship is automatically awarded to anyone who his born in the country, with several exceptions. 

One of those exceptions involves the children of foreign diplomats. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, children of diplomats who are born in the U.S. are exempt and are not considered U.S. citizens at birth. 

Shibly claims that Muthana's father was discharged from his United Nations post one month before his daughter was born, which means the exemption is not valid in her case. 

Shibly accused Trump of trying to strip her of citizenship and leaving her stateless. 

The attorney challenged the president's 'power to strip citizens of their citizenship' in a response tweet that referred to Trump as the 'Dictator in Chief' and encouraged him to allow her to return and stand trial. 

The administration's position could be challenged in court. 

Shibly did say whether he would sue in response to an inquiry from DailyMail.com, following his call out on Twitter of the American president.

He told Trump, however: 'Sorry Dictator in Chief but you don’t have the power to strip citizens of their citizenship. 

'Our nation is a nation of laws and we must hold everyone accountable to them. Hoda is asking to be accountable to our laws and legal system and you are essentially giving a free pass.'

Trump has taken aim at birthright citizenship in the past. He claimed last year that he could unilaterally end it, although the executive order he threatened never came to pass.

Sources told the New York Times that U.S. authorities might not have enough to charge her and this is a 'legal dodge' in an attempt to offload her.  

The Times wrote that Muthana's father provided proof that he had left his diplomatic post when he applied for his daughter's passport when she was a child.

U.S. authorities granted Muthana a passport as a child and gave her one again when she applied for renewal in 2014. She used her second U.S. passport to fly from Birmingham, Alabama to Istanbul, which she fled to join ISIS, her lawyer said.  

Trump's attempt to keep her from returning to the U.S. comes on the heels of a similar case in the U.K. 

A British teen who joined ISIS in Syria also had her UK citizenship revoked on Wednesday. Shamima Begum, who traveled to Syria in 2015 and now wants to return to Britain after giving birth in a refugee camp in Syria last week, was denied entry.

Prior to Pompeo's statement that the U.S. was revoking her passport, Muthana said in an interview with ABC News earlier on

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