{"id":80130,"date":"2026-10-17T22:27:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T03:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/17\/michigan-democrat-confirms-sister-in-laws-terror-watchlist-lawsuit-days-before-obama-campaign-appearance\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T22:27:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T03:27:45","slug":"michigan-democrat-confirms-sister-in-laws-terror-watchlist-lawsuit-days-before-obama-campaign-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/17\/michigan-democrat-confirms-sister-in-laws-terror-watchlist-lawsuit-days-before-obama-campaign-appearance\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Democrat confirms sister-in-law&#8217;s terror watchlist lawsuit days before Obama campaign appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michigan Democrat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Senate<\/a> candidate <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/abdul-el-sayed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Abdul El-Sayed<\/a> 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/person\/barack-obama\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Obama<\/a> is scheduled to campaign alongside him.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed was confronted by Fox News senior correspondent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/person\/t\/michael-tobin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Tobin<\/a> about court documents identifying his sister-in-law, Mariam Jukaku, as a plaintiff in a 2016 lawsuit challenging her alleged placement on the <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/us\/terror\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">federal Terrorism Screening Database<\/a>, commonly known as the terrorist watchlist.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s reporting in a lawsuit that now backs it up. And documentation with the lawsuit that Mariam Jukaku, who&#8217;s your sister-in-law, that she was on the terrorist watch list?&#8221; Tobin asked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah,&#8221; El-Sayed responded.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/politics\/michigan-senate-debate-erupts-personal-attacks-rogers-el-sayed-clash-over-israel-iran-more\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>MICHIGAN SENATE DEBATE ERUPTS INTO PERSONAL ATTACKS AS ROGERS, EL-SAYED CLASH OVER ISRAEL, IRAN AND MORE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed then defended his sister-in-law, insisting she had committed no wrongdoing and turning his criticism toward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/elections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Republican Senate<\/a> rival Mike Rogers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,&#8221; El-Sayed said. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got this system where folks are guilty until proven innocent because they&#8217;ve got different kinds of names, because of the infrastructure that people like Mike Rogers set up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The exchange comes as Obama prepares <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/politics\/democrats-civil-war-heads-michigan-progressives-face-biggest-test-high-stakes-senate-showdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to campaign<\/a> alongside El-Sayed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/us-regions\/midwest\/michigan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michigan<\/a> on Oct. 24, ahead of the Nov. 3 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/democratic-party\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">midterm election<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/el-sayed-asked-believes-america-ready-muslim-president-ahead-senate-race\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>EL-SAYED ASKED IF HE BELIEVES AMERICA IS &#8216;READY FOR A MUSLIM PRESIDENT&#8217; AHEAD OF SENATE RACE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed said she sued and won, but a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/judiciary\/federal-courts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">federal appeals court<\/a> overturned a ruling favoring the plaintiffs in 2021. A separate lawsuit seeking damages was dismissed in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Despite El-Sayed&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/politics\/trump-links-michigan-senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed-muslim-brotherhood-con-man\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>TRUMP LINKS MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE ABDUL EL-SAYED TO MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: &#8216;HE&#8217;S A CON MAN&#8217;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The FBI said it does not confirm or deny individuals&#8217; watchlist status.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is the U.S. government\u2019s policy to neither confirm nor deny a person\u2019s inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Dataset, commonly known as the terrorist watchlist,&#8221; the agency told Fox News.<\/p>\n<p>The exchange follows separate allegations about El-Sayed&#8217;s family&#8217;s purported <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/abdul-el-sayed-alleged-family-ties-muslim-brotherhood-surface-after-denying-link-nbc-interview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Muslim Brotherhood connections<\/a>, which his campaign called &#8220;racist and untrue.&#8221; Rogers called the allegations &#8220;disqualifying&#8221; Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The watchlist lawsuit does not establish wrongdoing by Jukaku or El-Sayed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin about court documents identifying his sister-in-law, Mariam Jukaku, &#8230; <a title=\"Michigan Democrat confirms sister-in-law&#8217;s terror watchlist lawsuit days before Obama campaign appearance\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/17\/michigan-democrat-confirms-sister-in-laws-terror-watchlist-lawsuit-days-before-obama-campaign-appearance\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Michigan Democrat confirms sister-in-law&#8217;s terror watchlist lawsuit days before Obama campaign appearance\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}