Obama's Aunt Living in the US Illegally

[Evan Miller]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081101/ap_on_el_pr/obama_aunt

CHICAGO – Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Saturday
he didn't know his aunt was living in the United States illegally and
believes that laws covering the situation should be followed.

The Associated Press found that Obama's aunt had been instructed to
leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected
her request for asylum from her native Kenya. The woman, Zeituni
Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), is living in public housing in Boston
and is the half-sister of Obama's late father.

A statement given to the AP by Obama's campaign said, "Senator Obama
has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all
appropriate laws be followed." Traveling with Obama in Nevada,
campaign strategist David Axelrod declined to elaborate on the
statement, but said: "I think people are suspicious about stories that
surface in the last 72 hours of a national campaign."

An adviser to Republican John McCain's campaign, Mark Salter, said he
had no comment on the reports about Obama's relative. "It's a family
matter," Salter said.

The campaign said it was returning $260 that Onyango had contributed
in small increments to Obama's presidential bid over several months.
Federal election law prohibits foreigners from making political
donations. Onyango listed her employer as the Boston Housing Authority
and last gave $5 on Sept. 19.

Onyango, 56, is part of Obama's large paternal family, with many
related to him by blood whom he never knew growing up.

Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., left the future presidential nominee
when the boy was 2, and they reunited only once — for a monthlong
visit when Obama was 10. The elder Obama lived most of his life in
Kenya, where he fathered seven other children with three other wives.
He died in a car crash in 1982.

Obama was raised for the most part by his mother and her parents in
Hawaii. He first met his father's side of the family when he traveled
to Africa 20 years ago. He referred to Onyango as "Auntie Zeituni"
when describing the trip in his memoir, saying she was "a proud
woman."

Obama's campaign said he had seen her a few times since that meeting,
beginning with a return trip to Kenya with his future wife, Michelle,
in 1992. Onyango visited the family in Chicago on a tourist visa at
Obama's invitation about nine years ago, the campaign said, stopping
to visit friends on the East Coast before returning to Kenya.

She attended Obama's swearing-in to the U.S. Senate in 2004, but
campaign officials said Obama provided no assistance in getting her a
tourist visa and doesn't know the details of her stay. The campaign
said he last heard from her about two years ago when she called saying
she was in Boston, but he did not see her there.

Onyango's refusal to leave the country would represent an
administrative, noncriminal violation of immigration law, meaning such
cases are handled outside the criminal court system. Estimates vary,
but many experts believe there are more than 10 million such
immigrants in the U.S.

The AP could not immediately reach Onyango for comment. When a
reporter went to her home Friday night, no one answered the door. A
neighbor said she was often not home on weekends. Onyango did not
immediately return telephone and written messages left at her home.

Onyango was instructed to leave the country by a U.S. immigration
judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter
told the AP. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no
one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.

It was unclear why her request was rejected in 2004. A spokeswoman for
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Kelly Nantel, said the
government does not comment on an individual's citizenship status or
immigration case.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by
two separate sources, one a federal law enforcement official. The
information they made available is known to officials in the federal
government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a
political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign
had been involved in its release.

Onyango's case — coming to light just days before the presidential
election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations
and Customs Enforcement requiring that any deportations before
Tuesday's election be approved at least at the level of the agency's
regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The directive suggests that the administration is sensitive to the
political implications of Onyango's case coming to light so close to
the election.

The East African nation has been fractured by violence in recent
years, including a period of two months of bloodshed after December
2007 that killed 1,500 people.

In Boston, Lydia Agro, communications director for the Housing
Authority, said Onyango had been screened and approved for public
housing as an "eligible non-citizen" when she moved in in 2003. She
said the authority is not notified of deportation orders and did not
know Onyango was related to Obama until two days ago.

Agro said the authority doesn't believe it needs to take any action to
remove Onyango from public housing despite the order.

She said that although Onyango entered the system under federal
guidelines in a federal development, she now lives in a state-funded
development. State law forbids the authority from even asking Onyango
about her immigration status. That means the federal deportation order
has no bearing on Onyango's eligibility for the state-funded project
where she lives, Agro said.

"We're not convinced that the deportation decision will affect her
housing at all right now," she said.

"She's been a very good resident," she added.