A so-called ISIS bride previously blocked from entering Australia will return from Syria after her temporary exclusion order expired and a mandatory return permit was issued.

The woman and her child are thought to be the last of a cohort, which has actively petitioned the Australian Government for repatriation from Syrian detention camps since 2019.

At least 16 ISIS brides have returned since 2022, including 10 in May alone, landing in Sydney and Melbourne.

Several have been charged with terror-related offences and crimes against humanity.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in February issued a Temporary Exclusion Order against the final woman, blocking her return on national security grounds.

She had travelled to the airport with the most recent cohort to return but was denied access to the flight she had booked.

Mr Burke and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have repeatedly denied facilitating returns for the group.

Speaking on ABC RN Breakfast on Thursday, Mr Burke said the group had made “horrific, ugly decisions” to travel to the region as far back as 2014 during the ISIS caliphate.

Mr Burke acknowledged the public attention on those returning from the camps but reminded listeners that large groups had also come back under the former Liberal 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,” Mr Burke said.

Earlier this year, Lebanese-born Australian general practitioner Jamal Rifi from Sydney had travelled to the camps to aid the women with passports and travel documents.

Mr Rifi had been a supporter of Mr Burke in the 2025 Federal Election.

Mr Burke indicated that legally his hands were tied regarding her return because a formal request was made after the exclusion order had expired.

He, however, vowed that authorities were “ready” and there would be extreme surveillance to monitor her on home soil.

“We will have to know where she lives, where she works, where she studies, if she books a ticket to anywhere,” he said.

“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.”

He said the returning woman is subject to extreme communication restrictions, requiring her to provide 24 hours’ notice before using any form of technology, including phones, email, social media, or the internet.

Shadow defence minister James Paterson described Mr Burke’s excuses for being unable to block the woman’s return as a “rather tortured explanation”.

“It was a rather tortured explanation from the Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke, about why this wasn’t his fault,” Senator Paterson told Sky News.

“There was nothing he could do. But the bottom line is the Albanese Labor government has issued a return permit to a member of ISIS, an affiliate of ISIS, to return to our country who was previously blocked from returning to our country.

“This is a government which has failed at every turn when it comes to the management of these so-called ISIS brides, really just ISIS members, who left our country to join an abhorrent terrorist organisation that viciously persecuted, murdered, raped and tortured people.”

Shadow Home Affairs Minister Jonno Duniam said it was ironic that the permit was “being sorted out” on the same night ASIO boss Mike Burgess told this annual threat assessment address that the terror threat level underestimated the true danger Australians face.