The Michigan Senate candidate defended Mariam Jukaku after renewed attention to her 2016 lawsuits challenging an alleged federal watchlist designation.
DETROIT, MI — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed acknowledged that his sister-in-law was the subject of a federal terrorist watchlist dispute during the Obama administration, defending her as someone who had done nothing wrong as decade-old court records resurfaced in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race.
El-Sayed made the acknowledgment after Fox News correspondent Mike Tobin asked him about Mariam Jukaku, the sister of El-Sayed’s wife, and her role in litigation over the federal Terrorist Screening Database. The exchange has drawn renewed political attention because former President Barack Obama is scheduled to campaign with El-Sayed in Michigan. The available court records show that Jukaku alleged she had been placed on the watchlist, but they do not establish that Obama personally ordered or knew of her designation.
“Yeah,” El-Sayed responded when Tobin asked whether court documents showed Jukaku had been on the terrorist watchlist. El-Sayed then said she had done nothing wrong and criticized the federal screening system, saying people could be treated as guilty because of their names. He also linked the system to policies he said Republican Senate opponent Mike Rogers helped create.
Jukaku was one of several plaintiffs named in federal lawsuits filed in Virginia in 2016 challenging the government’s watchlisting system. An amended complaint filed that August described her as a 32-year-old U.S. citizen living in Alameda County, California. The complaint said none of the plaintiffs had been charged with or convicted of a terrorism-related offense.
The complaint alleged that Jukaku encountered heightened airport screening on March 21, 2012, while preparing to fly from Detroit Metropolitan Airport to California. According to the filing, she could not check in online and received a boarding pass marked “SSSS,” a designation associated with additional security screening. The complaint said she underwent extensive searches, pat-downs and chemical testing.
Jukaku later filed a request through the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program and submitted a civil rights complaint, according to the court filing. Her lawyers alleged that she was never told the factual basis for what they described as her placement on the federal watchlist and was not given a meaningful opportunity to contest it. The complaint said that, based on information available to the plaintiffs, she was no longer on the list by the time of the litigation.
Those assertions came from Jukaku and the other plaintiffs and were not the same as a public confirmation by the federal government of her individual watchlist status or the reason for any designation. Federal agencies generally do not publicly confirm or deny whether a specific person is or was included in the Terrorist Screening Database. The public court filings reviewed for the case do not disclose intelligence evidence showing why Jukaku may have been flagged.
Contemporary reporting from 2016 described Jukaku as saying she discovered the problem after traveling through Detroit and that she believed she was later removed from the list following a complaint to the government. She joined broader litigation challenging the watchlist process, which plaintiffs argued lacked sufficient notice and an effective way for people to contest their status.
The renewed scrutiny comes as El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s 2026 Senate campaign. The watchlist dispute concerns El-Sayed’s relative rather than El-Sayed himself, and the court documents reviewed do not accuse El-Sayed of terrorism-related wrongdoing. They also do not support the broader claim that Obama personally placed Jukaku on the watchlist; they show that her alleged designation and her legal challenge occurred while Obama was president.
With the election approaching, the 2016 litigation is likely to remain part of the political debate surrounding El-Sayed. The reason for Jukaku’s alleged watchlist designation has not been publicly established, and the federal government has not released records resolving why she was subjected to the screening described in the lawsuit.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.