Michigan Democrat admits sister-in-law was on terrorist watchlist ahead of Obama campaign stop

Clear Facts

• Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed confirmed his sister-in-law Mariam Jukaku was named in a 2016 federal lawsuit challenging her placement on the terrorist watchlist.
• Former President Barack Obama is scheduled to campaign with El-Sayed in Michigan on October 24, days after the admission.
• A federal appeals court later overturned a ruling favorable to the plaintiffs, and a damages lawsuit was dismissed in 2017.

El-Sayed confirmed the details Saturday night when questioned about court documents that identified his sister-in-law in the 2016 lawsuit against the federal Terrorism Screening Database.

Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin directly asked El-Sayed about the records.

“There’s reporting in a lawsuit that now backs it up. And documentation with the lawsuit that Mariam Jukaku, who’s your sister-in-law, that she was on the terrorist watch list?”

El-Sayed answered plainly.

“Yeah.”

He defended his sister-in-law by claiming she had done nothing wrong and accused the watchlist system of unfairly targeting people with certain names.

“She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,” El-Sayed said.

“You’ve got this system where folks are guilty until proven innocent because they’ve got different kinds of names, because of the infrastructure that people like Mike Rogers set up.”

The exchange comes days before Obama campaigns with El-Sayed in Michigan on October 24 ahead of the November midterm election.

According to the 2016 complaint, Jukaku received additional airport screening in 2012 and was never given a reason for being flagged.

El-Sayed claimed she sued and won, but court records show the federal appeals court overturned the favorable ruling in 2021 and a separate damages case was dismissed in 2017.

The FBI maintains it does not confirm or deny any individual’s watchlist status, stating it is U.S. government policy to neither confirm nor deny a person’s inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Dataset.

El-Sayed’s family has also faced separate allegations of Muslim Brotherhood ties, which his campaign dismissed as racist and untrue.

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