Final ISIS ‘Bride’ Set to Return to Australia, Minister Says He Has No Power to Stop It

A woman who is believed to have committed serious offences overseas will be free to return to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says.

Minister for Home Affairs, Cyber, and Immigration Tony Burke addresses the chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Jan. 20, 2026. Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

The federal Labor government says it no longer has the power to keep a previously excluded ISIS “bride” from returning to Australia.

The woman and her child are the last of the ISIS-linked Australian party to be returning from a Syrian displacement camp.

Previously, the woman was subject to a temporary exclusion order (TEO) from Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, which is normally applied to people known to have committed a terrorist offence in a foreign country.

“If I can explain, the temporary exclusion order applies until a permit is issued, and when a permit is requested, a permit lawfully has to be issued,” Burke told ABC AM radio on June 25.

“I’ve been working through with my, my department, my agencies, Australian Federal Police at ASIO, and with the lawyers to see every possible condition we can put on that permit.”

The minister said the woman would be subject to a number of conditions upon her return, including having to report to police, having to share her address, where she works or studies, and she will not be allowed to use any telecommunications device within a day’s notice.

“Any social media, 24 hours notice on everything has to be given, so that there will be a very high level of scrutiny and surveillance, and we have gone absolutely to the legal limit that we’re able to,” Burke said.

The woman has received the permit and is free to return to Australia at any stage, but the minister also said other ISIS-linked individuals had been returning prior to this Labor government.

“There have been people returning since long before we came to government, including 45 men who went there to fight, all of whom had returned before we came to office.”

In May, two batches of ISIS supporters returned totaling 22 women and children. So far three women have been arrested.

In response, Liberal Senator James Paterson said the government should have done more to prevent the woman’s return.

“It was a rather tortured explanation from the Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke about why this wasn’t his fault,” he said.

“Some of those [women], upon return to Australia, have been charged with crimes against humanity, including human trafficking. I mean, these are not good people.

“They are not welcome in our country. And the Albanese government, once again, is not doing everything they can to protect our country by keeping these people out of it.”

One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson issued a single line statement in the wake of the news.

“ISIS brides won’t be allowed in the monoculture,” she wrote on Facebook, referring to her calls to end multiculturalism in Australia.

Former Home Affairs Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo said TEOs were created during the previous Coalition government after attempts to strip citizenship were struck down by the High Court.

“So temporary exclusion orders are a backup mechanism, if you will,” Pezzullo told Sky News Australia.

Yet he questioned how the ISIS group obtained their passports, saying the Home Affairs minister had authority to review applications.

“It strikes me as odd in relation, not necessarily to temper exclusion, but how did they get a passport? Because if they were given a passport, the minister has to be satisfied in relation to the Passports Act that a person’s not going to pose a risk to the community.”