As nations worldwide debate how to handle thousands of their citizens who became fighters for the Islamic State, some people argue for revoking their citizenship, barring them from their homelands. This would leave ISIS ex-fighters in an uncertain detention in Syria, denying them normal judicial processes. Defenders of this idea cite ISIS’ extreme brutality and some argue that vengeance is justified, in part to protect ISIS’ victims. As a former ISIS hostage painfully familiar with that brutality, I must reply that our only viable path is to bring these fighters home to face justice in courts of law.
Families, ex-residents of the Islamic State, have lived since 2019 at the al-Hol camp. Governments have been slow to repatriate their citizens from this and other detention centers in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria. (Ivor Prickett/The New York Times)