Associated Press/Fox NewsObama ‘Aunti’ in U.S. as ‘Illegal’
Obama denies he knew aunt was residing in Boston public housing since her request for asylum was denied
Barack Obama said Saturday he was unaware that one of his relatives from Kenya was living in the United States illegally and added that believes the appropriate laws should be followed.
The Associated Press reported Friday 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 is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama’s late father .
“Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed,” the Obama campaign said in a written statement given to FOX News.
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 moved into public housing a year before her request for asylum was rejected, a spokeswoman for the Boston Housing Authority told FOXNews.com.
“If there was a deportation order, we wouldn’t have known about it,” spokeswoman Lydia Agro said, explaining that there is no mechanism in place for her agency to get that information.
“We were unaware of her status until this morning,” Agro said.
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Two separate sources, including a federal law enforcement official, disclosed and confirmed information to the AP about the deportation case. 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 refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. 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 United States.
The AP could not reach Onyango immediately for comment. No one answered the telephone number listed in her name late Friday. It was unclear why her request for asylum was rejected in 2004.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Kelly Nantel, told the AP the government does not comment on an individual’s citizenship status or immigration case.
Onyango’s case — coming to light just days before the presidential election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday’s election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.
The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango’s case coming to light so close to the election.
One of the sources acknowledged he was not a supporter of Obama or John McCain and said he has no plans to vote on Tuesday. He said that was not a motive for releasing the information.
Kenya is in eastern Africa between Somalia and Tanzania. The country has been fractured in violence in recent years, including a period of two months of bloodshed after December 2007 that killed 1,500 people.
Obama Aunt Found Living in Boston Public Housing
HEREThe Associated Press contributed to this report.