The emergence and subsequent decline of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria provides new challenges for Western governments facing the return of foreign fighters and their families to home soil. This article focuses on the children of returned foreign fighters and more specifically on the international responsibility to provide all children, particularly those most vulnerable and in need, with an education. A critical discourse analysis of public debates surrounding the return of the children of Australian foreign fighters illustrates the tension that exists between the rights of children, citizenship and a nation's capacity to overcome a culture of fear. We argue that we are currently witnessing the emergence of a new type of human being; a particularly insidious and dangerous form of 'child citizen refugee'. The paper employs fear as a symptom of modern life and Arendt's poignant lesson of exclusion and persecution to investigate why the children of returning foreign fighters may be denied the right to an inclusive education. We argue that fear is the antithesis of inclusive education and highlight how ill-equipped we are to overcome the ubiquity of fear to engage in an ethical project of educational inclusion for these children.