Did Rubio say he would investigate El-Sayed’s immigration status? Here’s the truth

As voters headed to the polls for the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, a claim (archived) circulated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said authorities would “look into Abdul El-Sayed’s immigration status and see if he committed fraud,” despite El-Sayed being born in the U.S.

El-Sayed is running for a Senate seat representing Michigan and, if elected, would be the first Muslim U.S. senator.

One Facebook account that spread the claim about Rubio allegedly investigating El-Sayed’s immigration status days before the election wrote: 

Marco Rubio has reportedly said officials are “looking into Abdul El-Sayed’s immigration status” and investigating “whether he committed fraud.”

Abdul El-Sayed was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan. He’s a U.S. citizen by BIRTH.

The same account also spread the claim twice on Instagram in October (archived, archived). Snopes users contacted us about the claim.

We found no evidence in searches on Google, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo (archived, archived, archived) that Rubio said he or the State Department was investigating El-Sayed’s immigration status. Given El-Sayed’s prominent position as a rare Muslim candidate in a race in a crucial swing state, reputable media outlets would have reported on such an investigation. Therefore, we found social media users incorrectly attributed the quote to Rubio.

The claim appeared to come from a Facebook page (archived) that described some of its content as satirical in nature. That page first posted the claim on Aug. 7, which was the earliest instance Snopes found.

In addition to the above, El-Sayed’s campaign, local and national media outlets all said he was born in Michigan, meaning he never immigrated to the U.S. as a foreign national or had an immigration status that Rubio or the State Department could investigate. We found no reputable reporting disputing that El-Sayed was born in the U.S.

We contacted the State Department and El-Sayed’s campaign to ask whether either knew of an ongoing or planned investigation into El-Sayed’s immigration status. We also contacted the satirical Facebook page that shared an early version of the claim to ask if they created it. We await replies to our queries.

Bridge Michigan, a nonpartisan news outlet, reported in August that El-Sayed was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan, on Oct. 31, 1984. The Democrat candidate has previously described himself in a political ad as, “as Michigan as you get.”

Despite numerous uncontested reports that he was born in the U.S., El-Sayed has previously faced questions over his citizenship. For example, the conservative news outlet The Washington Free Beacon reported in January that El-Sayed said he held dual U.S. and Egyptian citizenship. The U.S. allows dual nationality for some citizens, including those born in the U.S.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, El-Sayed’s campaign said at the time he did not actually hold dual Egyptian nationality and that someone had falsely informed him he did.

In October, while speaking at a campaign event in Florida, President Donald Trump appeared to falsely cast doubt over El-Sayed’s nationality, telling attendees (at 8:15:54), “Abdul is not a big fan of Jewish people and he’s not a big fan of Black people. And I hope you’re going to vote against him and send him back to where he came from.” 

As noted above, El-Sayed was born in Michigan.

For further reading, Snopes has previously investigated other claims about the Michigan Senate race.

Sources