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July 30, 2026 / 1:29 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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A court-appointed lawyer for an Afghan woman and U.S. permanent resident whom the Justice Department alleges is an "alien terrorist" vowed Thursday to vigorously fight the government's efforts to deport her, telling a federal judge that the entire legal process is unfair and unconstitutional.In the first-ever test case before the secretive and never-before-used Alien Terrorist Removal Court, federal public defender Matthew Farley accused the Justice Department of violating Nazira Haji Zada's due process rights. He asked the judge to immediately release his client — a request the judge denied — but the issue is expected to be reviewed at a subsequent detention hearing."This entire scheme is in violation of due process and unconstitutional," Farley told U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, the chief judge of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Farley said the case represents "a runaround to bringing a criminal case" because it relies on a lower evidentiary standard to prove whether she is a non-citizen terrorist who can be deported under the law.Thursday's hearing marked the first time the Alien Terrorist Removal Court has ever convened since it was first created in 1996. It was set up to deport noncitizens who could not be removed by the traditional legal process because the information about their cases was classified and could not be made public for national security reasons.It is so new that it lacks even an electronic filing system — a fact the judge acknowledged as she called for patience while the court staffers work to stand up the infrastructure for the court, which she noted has been "dormant and untested for three decades."
