Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed admitted his sister-in-law landed on the federal terrorist watchlist during the Obama years, days before the former president campaigns beside him.
Breitbart reported that Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin confronted El-Sayed in a hallway Saturday night with court documents naming Mariam Jukaku, his sister-in-law, as a plaintiff in a 2016 lawsuit over her alleged placement on the Terrorist Screening Dataset.
Tobin put the question directly. El-Sayed did not dodge it.
When asked whether the lawsuit documentation showed Jukaku had been on the terrorist watch list, El-Sayed answered, “Yeah.”
He then insisted she had done nothing wrong, claimed she sued her way off the list, and blamed the screening system itself, including infrastructure he tied to his Republican rival, Mike Rogers.
The acknowledgment lands as former President Barack Obama is expected to appear with El-Sayed in Michigan on October 24. Voters now have a clearer picture of the family history surrounding a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate.
Fox News reported that court documents and related coverage show Jukaku underwent extensive airport screening in 2012 without being told she had been flagged. The 2016 filing said she was believed removed from the watchlist by that year.
El-Sayed framed the episode as a false flagging and a successful fight.
“She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,”
he told Tobin.
The legal trail did not end cleanly in her favor. A separate lawsuit seeking damages was dismissed in 2017. In 2021, a federal appeals court overturned a ruling that had favored Jukaku and other plaintiffs.
Fox News noted the watchlist lawsuit does not establish wrongdoing by Jukaku or El-Sayed. The FBI, for its part, stuck to policy.
“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 bureau said.
The New York Post reported additional context on why Jukaku drew scrutiny. She received SSSS secondary screening at Detroit airport in 2012, a designation tied to “known or suspected terrorist” status. She had also served as an editor at UCLA’s Al-Talib publication, whose key advertisers were later shut down by federal authorities over suspected terrorist ties. In 2007, she had a run-in with law enforcement for photographing federal facilities.
That background sits alongside El-Sayed’s own defense of the screening system as biased.
“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.”
he said, pivoting toward his GOP opponent.
Rogers, on Saturday, called related family allegations “disqualifying.”
El-Sayed has faced other questions about family ties. His campaign has branded those claims “racist and untrue,” even as coverage of his half-sister’s statements on Muslim Brotherhood links continued to dog the race.
The timing is hard to miss. Obama is expected to campaign alongside El-Sayed in Michigan on October 24, the same former president whose administration, per the candidate’s own acknowledgment, oversaw the period when his sister-in-law was on the list.
Senate races turn on trust. A candidate who spends years in progressive politics now wants Michiganders to hand him a six-year term while brushing past a close relative’s federal terror-screening history.
Donor networks have already drawn scrutiny, including reporting on more than $115,000 from CAIR-affiliated donors tied to his campaign.
National progressive money has followed too. Separate coverage showed Ocasio-Cortez steering $1 million toward El-Sayed’s effort.
That coalition is free to back him. Voters are free to ask what else they have not been told.
El-Sayed has also faced pointed questions on foreign policy. One episode captured him refusing to condemn Iran’s regime when pressed by a student whose family was killed.
President Trump has already weighed in on the broader contest, branding El-Sayed a terrorist sympathizer and backing Rogers in the Michigan race.
El-Sayed wants the watchlist episode treated as a closed clerical error. The public record shows a 2012 secondary screening, a 2016 challenge, a 2017 damages dismissal, and a 2021 appellate loss for the plaintiffs’ side.
He answered “Yeah” when asked if his sister-in-law had been on the list. He said she sued and “got off.” The appeals court later wiped out the ruling that had gone her way.
None of that requires inventing motives. It requires reading the timeline the candidate himself confirmed under questioning.
Michigan voters can decide whether a Senate hopeful who blames “names” and “infrastructure” has given a full account, or a convenient one.
Family history is not guilt by blood. But national security screening records, donor patterns, and foreign-policy evasions are fair game in a race for the world’s most powerful legislature. Pretending otherwise is how bad risks get normalized.
