Obama-era terror watchlist caught El-Sayed’s sister-in-law as Michigan Democrat insists she did nothing wrong

Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed insists his sister-in-law “did nothing wrong” after she landed on a federal terror watchlist in the Obama years, even as the former president prepares to campaign beside him.

El-Sayed confirmed the placement in a Saturday night interview and framed it as a system that treats people with “different kinds of names” as guilty until proven innocent. The timing is awkward: he is set to stump with Barack Obama while voters already press him on family ties and organizational history.

Fox News reported that the Democrat acknowledged sister-in-law Mariam Jukaku as a plaintiff in a 2016 lawsuit over alleged placement on the federal Terrorism Screening Database during the Obama administration, with Obama scheduled to appear with him in Michigan on Oct. 24.

That lawsuit and the screening episode behind it are now colliding with a high-stakes Senate race and a joint appearance that El-Sayed’s camp cannot easily ignore.

El-Sayed says she sued and “got off”

Speaking to Fox News on Saturday night, El-Sayed did not deny the watchlist episode. He defended Jukaku in blunt terms and tied the broader screening system to his Republican opponent.

El-Sayed told Fox News his relative was swept up, fought back in court, and cleared the problem.

"She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,"

He went further, blaming the architecture of the lists themselves and naming GOP foe Mike 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,"

Breitbart noted the same admission and the political coincidence of Obama’s planned campaign stop with a candidate whose relative was listed during the Obama years and later removed after litigation.

The government typically declines to confirm or deny watchlist status or the reasons for it. Being listed does not mean a person has been convicted of a crime. Critics of the system have long argued it lacks ordinary due process. The exact reason for Jukaku’s alleged placement was not specified in the available court narrative.

Detroit airport stop triggered the paper trail

The public record that later reached court starts at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in 2012. While trying to board a flight, Jukaku had her boarding pass stamped “SSSS,” the Secondary Security Screening Selection mark.

Suit language described the stamp as indicating she had been designated a “known or suspected terrorist.” Security then subjected her to extensive searches, pat-downs, and chemical testing.

In 2016 she joined more than a dozen other plaintiffs in a class action against the federal government seeking damages over Terrorism Screening Database placement. CAIR attorneys championed the case and held a press conference around it. The two sides agreed to dismiss the damages suit in 2017. A related case seeking an injunction initially won a ruling before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in 2021.

Jukaku had earlier drawn attention as an editor at UCLA’s Al-Talib student publication. Cited reports said three key advertisers for that paper were shut down by federal authorities over suspected terrorist ties. In 2007, while in graduate school at Syracuse University, she had a run-in with law enforcement over photographing federal facilities, according to reporting cited in the coverage. The Post said it could not reach her for comment.

CAIR’s role brings its own baggage

CAIR’s involvement is not a footnote in Michigan politics. The group is described as the largest Muslim charity in the country and has long faced accusations of ties to dangerous organizations, including Hamas. Texas and Florida have designated it a terrorist organization. The United Arab Emirates has done the same. It was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation case, in which the foundation was convicted of supporting Hamas. After the Sept. 11 attacks, CAIR opposed the war in Afghanistan and sought to cast blame toward U.S. support for Israel. The Trump administration launched an investigation earlier this year into $30 million in Afghan refugee resettlement funds connected to the group. CAIR has denied ties to terror organizations.

Voters already tracking El-Sayed’s Sharia law defense on Fox News now have another layer of organizational association to weigh before Election Day.

El-Sayed is also taking heat over family connections that extend beyond the watchlist case. His father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, previously sat on a committee of the Islamic Society of North America, an organization the coverage links to the Muslim Brotherhood. His biological mother, Fatten El-Komy, previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency; the Treasury Department designated that agency a terrorist group in 2004 for supporting al Qaeda and Hamas. She was not implicated in that designation case and had divorced El-Sayed’s father when he was little.

Half-sister’s old posts put Brotherhood on the record

Family statements from more than a decade ago have resurfaced as well. University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, El-Sayed’s half-sister, posted on X on June 24, 2012, about her mother’s past.

"Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect,"

Another post from that period was equally direct.

"My family has long been MB, but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively,"

The Muslim Brotherhood is known for radical offshoots such as Hamas. Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have designated it a terrorist organization; the United States has not.

Those posts landed in the same political climate as El-Sayed’s other controversies, including warnings from conservatives about his record that Tudor Dixon has already flagged for Michigan voters.

On the trail, a voter named Tommy pressed El-Sayed on whether he would disavow the Brotherhood. El-Sayed answered quickly, then turned the question back on the voter’s assumptions about Muslim candidates and the Constitution.

"Sure. Yeah, absolutely,"

He followed with a challenge to the premise.

"You assume, Tommy, that because I am Muslim, that somehow, I would have allegiance to something that is not our Constitution,"

"That’s implicit in the question," he added. He also invoked the skepticism John F. Kennedy once faced over his Catholic faith.

Obama rally collides with the paper trail

El-Sayed is scheduled to debate Rogers on Wednesday and to appear with Obama on Saturday. The former president’s decision to share a stage with him puts the 2012 screening, the 2016 lawsuit, and the family-organization web into the same news cycle as a marquee Democratic surrogate visit.

That visit sits alongside broader Democratic fundraising and turnout work, including efforts captured when Obama banked more than $13 million for Democrats in a separate push this cycle.

El-Sayed has adjusted his own posture toward Obama as the joint event neared, a shift tracked as he softened past Obama attacks while locking in the Michigan Senate rally. The watchlist history now travels with that appearance whether the campaign wants it to or not.

Watchlist systems have snared high-profile figures before. Former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was cited as an example of a senior official placed on a TSA “Quiet Skies” list, allegedly over overseas travel patterns. The point El-Sayed wants voters to accept is that lists can be overbroad. The point his critics will hammer is that his relative’s case, CAIR’s lawyering, and the family’s documented associations arrived together on the eve of an Obama campaign stop.

Michigan Democrats are already navigating factional fights of their own, from progressive primary shocks to candidate branding fights that shape the fall map. The Senate contest will test whether El-Sayed can keep the focus on Rogers and “infrastructure” while the 2012 airport stamp, the dismissed suit, the reversed injunction, and the Brotherhood posts remain in plain sight.

Voters can hear the candidate’s defense in his own words. They can also read the timeline the Obama-era screening left behind, and decide whether “she did nothing wrong” settles the question or simply restates the spin.