Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed confirmed on camera that his sister-in-law was named in a federal terrorist watchlist lawsuit, and he did it days before former President Barack Obama is set to campaign with him.
In a Saturday night interview with Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin, El-Sayed answered directly when pressed about court documents tied to Mariam Jukaku. He said she did nothing wrong, sued, and “got off,” then turned the blame toward Republican rival Mike Rogers and the screening system Rogers once helped shape.
The exchange lands in the final stretch of a Michigan Senate race heading into the Nov. 3 midterm election, with Obama scheduled to appear alongside El-Sayed on Oct. 24. It also revives a long-running dispute over how the federal Terrorism Screening Database is built, challenged, and publicly discussed.
Fox News reported that Tobin put the allegation to El-Sayed in plain terms, citing lawsuit reporting and documentation identifying Jukaku as his sister-in-law.
Tobin asked whether those materials showed she had been on the terrorist watch list.
"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’s first reply was brief.
"Yeah,"
He then offered a defense of Jukaku and a broader attack on the screening regime.
"She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,"
He went further, casting the process as stacked against people with certain names and tying that design to Rogers.
"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."
Fox News described a 2016 complaint that listed Jukaku among the plaintiffs challenging alleged placement on the federal Terrorism Screening Database, often called the terrorist watchlist.
Per that complaint account, Jukaku faced additional airport screening in 2012 and alleged she was never told why she had been flagged. The filing also said she was believed to have been removed from the watchlist by 2016.
Those claims are lawsuit allegations, not adjudicated findings of wrongdoing by Jukaku or by El-Sayed. Fox News noted the watchlist suit does not establish wrongdoing by either of them.
El-Sayed’s phrasing suggested a clean win. The procedural history Fox News laid out is more mixed.
A separate lawsuit seeking damages was dismissed in 2017. In 2021, a federal appeals court overturned a ruling that had favored the plaintiffs. Specific court names, case captions, and docket numbers were not provided in the reporting package summarized here.
Investigators and voters are left with a public record that includes a 2016 complaint, a dismissed damages action, and a 2021 appellate reversal of a plaintiff-friendly ruling. Authorities have not publicly released a simple scorecard matching El-Sayed’s on-air summary word for word.
The FBI’s public posture remains categorical. The bureau said it is U.S. government policy neither to confirm nor deny a person’s inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Dataset, commonly known as the terrorist watchlist.
That policy means campaign-season claims about who was or was not listed cannot be settled by a quick official yes or no. Placement, removal, and the reasons for either step stay inside a closed process unless a court fight forces more daylight.
For readers tracking national security screening, the practical effect is clear. A candidate can confirm a relative’s lawsuit. The government still will not confirm the underlying list entry.
Rogers is El-Sayed’s Republican Senate rival. El-Sayed used the interview to fault “infrastructure that people like Mike Rogers set up.” Rogers’ own verbatim reply on the watchlist point was not included in the available package.
Separately, Fox News reported that Rogers on Saturday called other allegations about El-Sayed’s family’s purported Muslim Brotherhood connections “disqualifying.” El-Sayed’s campaign called those Brotherhood allegations “racist and untrue.”
Details of those separate allegations beyond the campaign denial and Rogers’ characterization were not spelled out in the same report. No public results were released in that package proving or disproving the Brotherhood claims.
The political timing is tight. Obama is scheduled to campaign with El-Sayed in Michigan on Oct. 24. The midterm election follows on Nov. 3. Photo captions tied to the coverage placed El-Sayed at a Detroit news conference and referenced the Michigan Democratic Party’s 2026 nominating convention in Lansing, underscoring an active statewide operation.
Strip away the sparring and the documented sequence is straightforward.
In 2012, according to the later complaint narrative, Jukaku underwent extra airport screening and alleged she received no explanation. In 2016, she appeared as a plaintiff in a federal complaint challenging alleged watchlist placement, and the filing said she was believed removed by then. In 2017, a damages suit was dismissed. In 2021, an appeals court overturned a ruling that had favored the plaintiffs. On a recent Saturday night, El-Sayed acknowledged the lawsuit history on Fox News and defended his sister-in-law while blaming Rogers-linked infrastructure.
No arrest, injury, or damages figure tied to this watchlist dispute appears in the fact package. No primary complaint text was reproduced beyond the paraphrased points above. The airport involved in the 2012 screening was not named.
Several core questions remain outside public confirmation.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether Jukaku was in fact listed, only that a lawsuit alleged it and that FBI policy bars confirm-or-deny answers. Investigators and courts would need a fuller docket release to show the precise final relief, if any, that supports El-Sayed’s claim she “sued and got off,” especially after the 2017 dismissal and the 2021 appellate turn.
Campaigns will keep arguing motive and fairness. The federal system will keep declining to validate individual list status in public. Michigan voters will decide the Senate seat on Nov. 3 with Obama’s Oct. 24 stop already on the calendar.
Watchlist litigation sits at the junction of aviation security, due process, and political speech. Plaintiffs say secret flags punish the innocent. Officials say the list is a screening tool the government will not discuss person by person.
El-Sayed chose to answer “yeah,” defend Jukaku, and indict the architecture he associates with Rogers. Rogers, for his part, has branded separate family-network allegations disqualifying. The FBI has drawn a bright line against confirmation. The court path from 2016 through 2021 did not deliver a simple public trophy for either narrative.
That is the record as it stands: an on-camera confirmation, a contested screening history told through lawsuit papers, and a federal policy of silence on the underlying list.
When Senate candidates confirm terror-watchlist litigation in the family and then point fingers at the screening system itself, voters deserve cold process facts, not fog. Constitutional order depends on equal rules, real court outcomes, and agencies that answer to law rather than to the nearest campaign bus.
