The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed two lawsuits with the federal court system during the administration of former President Barack Obama in an attempt to remove Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s sister-in-law from a terrorist watchlist, claiming it violated her Fifth Amendment rights.
CAIR filed the lawsuit, along with another seeking damages, after Mariam Jukaku, El-Sayed’s sister-in-law, filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security when she reportedly noticed in 2012 that “her boarding pass was stamped with the ‘SSSS’ designation, which indicated that she had been designated as a ‘known or suspected terrorist.’”
While the Department of Homeland Security did not provide a reason for placing Jukaku in the database when contacted by The Federalist, or whether she was even on it, Jukaku said she believes she was added to the watch list because of racism or religious discrimination, according to the lawsuit, The Federalist noted.
However, a 2003 Los Angeles Times article and a 2004 Daily Bruin article depict Mariam Jukaku leading the Muslim Student Association at UCLA, with the Bruin stating Jukaku was editor of the publication Al-Talib.
The U.S. government later “shut down” several advertisements for Al-Talib over alleged terror ties, which the publication’s student editor refuted, calling the claim “ridiculous” and noting that the Muslim Student Association had also faced allegations of “being a terrorist organization.”
In 2021, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the original district court’s ruling for the first of the two lawsuits, claiming that the “plaintiffs have not demonstrated infringements of constitutional liberty interests under the Due Process Clause.” The second lawsuit, which sought monetary damages, was denied by a federal court in 2017.
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It is unclear, however, if Jukaku remains on the watchlist. In a statement to The Federalist, federal authorities declined to comment on her status.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Before the terrorist designation, a Syracuse University student by the same name, believed to be El-Sayed’s sister-in-law, was portrayed in other articles as being told to delete photos she took of a Veterans Affairs hospital in New York. She said the incident was the result of racial profiling by security personnel because of her Muslim identity.
That incident was also refuted by CAIR, which claimed it was the result of racial discrimination.
Islamic Horizons, a publication for the Muslim community, mentioned in a 2009 issue that Mariam Jukaku is a graduate of UCLA and Syracuse.
Jukaku is currently a teacher, homeschool advocate, and cofounder of the Mindful Muslim Reader Project, an organization dedicated to writing children’s books on traditional values.
CAIR and El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.
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