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Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed acknowledged Saturday night that his sister-in-law was involved in a federal terrorist watchlist lawsuit during the Obama administration, just days before former President Barack Obama is scheduled to campaign alongside him.
El-Sayed was confronted by senior correspondent Mike Tobin about court documents identifying his sister-in-law, Mariam Jukaku, as a plaintiff in a 2016 lawsuit challenging her alleged placement on the federal Terrorism Screening Database, commonly known as the terrorist watchlist.
“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?” Tobin asked.
“Yeah,” El-Sayed responded.
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El-Sayed has defended his sister-in-law, insisting she had committed no wrongdoing. (Anadolu via Getty Images)
El-Sayed then defended his sister-in-law, insisting she had committed no wrongdoing and turning his criticism toward Republican Senate rival Mike Rogers.
“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 as Obama prepares to campaign alongside El-Sayed in Michigan on Oct. 24, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.
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Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, takes questions at a news conference in Detroit. (Paul Steinhauser/)
According to the 2016 complaint, Jukaku underwent additional airport screening in 2012, and alleged she was never told why she had been flagged. The filing said she was believed to have been removed from the watchlist by 2016.
El-Sayed said she sued and won, but a federal appeals court overturned a ruling favoring the plaintiffs in 2021. A separate lawsuit seeking damages was dismissed in 2017.
Despite El-Sayed’s claim that she sued and won, a federal appeals court overturned a ruling favoring the plaintiffs in 2021, while a separate lawsuit seeking damages was dismissed in 2017.
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Abdul El-Sayed speaks during the Michigan Democratic Party’s 2026 nominating convention in Lansing. (Sarah Rice/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The FBI said it does not confirm or deny individuals’ watchlist status.
“It is the U.S. government’s policy to neither confirm nor deny a person’s inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Dataset, commonly known as the terrorist watchlist,” the agency told .
The exchange follows separate allegations about El-Sayed’s family’s purported Muslim Brotherhood connections, which his campaign called “racist and untrue.” Rogers called the allegations “disqualifying” Saturday.
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The watchlist lawsuit does not establish wrongdoing by Jukaku or El-Sayed.
