Ted Cruz has a plan to oust Americans who join ISIS

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, filed a bill on Monday to punish Americans who join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or any other terrorist group by stripping them of their United States citizenship.

His "Expatriate Terrorist Act" amends an existing statute that lays out conditions under which an American could renounce their U.S. citizenship to include becoming a member of, fighting for or providing material assistance to a designated foreign terrorist organization that is working to attack the U.S. or its citizens.

"Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured," Cruz said in a statement. "There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to re-enter our country and carry out further attacks on American civilians."

American officials have expressed particular concern over the American and European fighters who join ISIS and other groups. Because they hold passports from the U.S. and Western European countries, it is easy for them to enter the U.S. - and perhaps carry out a terror attack on the homeland - without being subjected to heightened scrutiny.

The first American to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Syria, Moner Mohammad Abusalha, returned to his home in Florida between the time he first traveled to Syria to train with an al-Qaeda offshoot and the day he detonated explosives strapped to his body.