Obama’s aunt was ruled at risk - Disclosure of case made US asylum vital, judge said
A federal official disclosed information about Zeituni Onyango, President Obama’s aunt, to the media.
Boston.com
By Maria Sacchetti
August 17, 2010
The immigration judge who granted President Obama’s aunt asylum three months ago based his decision on the fact that an anonymous federal official had disclosed information about her immigration status to the media, a “reckless’’ act that exposed her to heightened threats of persecution in her native Kenya, according to the ruling, obtained yesterday by the Globe.
Although the grant of asylum to Zeituni Onyango in May was made public, the written decision detailing the reason for it was kept under wraps because of federal privacy laws. But the secrecy sparked accusations that she had received favorable treatment.
The decision was released yesterday through the Freedom of Information Act.
Onyango, a 58-year-old resident of Boston public housing, had tried twice to win asylum allowing her to stay in the United States and had been rejected both times. But her third attempt came under different circumstances brought about in part by an anonymous government official, according to the decision.
Immigration Judge Leonard I. Shapiro, who presided over her deportation case in February, said a federal law enforcement official’s public revelations about her confidential case catapulted Onyango into the spotlight in a “highly publicized and highly politicized manner’’ just days before Obama’s historic election in November 2008. The publicity and her status as Obama’s aunt are the crux of his 29-page decision.
Shapiro, a veteran immigration judge and Republican appointee, wrote harshly of the anonymous Bush administration official’s leak to the Associated Press for using confidential information for political purposes and said it was a “clear violation of federal regulations.’’
“Moreover,’’ he wrote, “the disclosure . . . was a reckless and illegal violation of her right to privacy which has exposed her to great risk.’’
The decision cleared the way for the former computer programmer to remain in the United States and one day become a US citizen. Asylum applicants must prove that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their homelands, and because of that their cases are generally kept confidential. The Globe argued that the widespread attention to the case, plus Onyango’s decision to grant some media interviews, warranted the release of the judge’s decision.
Shapiro’s ruling ignited national debate over whether Onyango had received special treatment because she is the president’s aunt. She is the half-sister of his late father, who was a distant figure in the president’s life before he died in a car crash in 1982. The president met Onyango during a trip to Kenya in 1988 and included her in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father.’’
The president has said he refused to intervene in the case. Yesterday, a spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Until 2008, Onyango had lived in near-obscurity in a Boston public housing development, never confiding to neighbors that she was related to the man who would become the first African-American president of the United States.
Onyango came to the United States in 2000 on a “pleasure’’ trip and stayed after her visa expired the next year, according to Shapiro’s ruling. She filed for asylum in December 2002, but was denied and ordered deported. She soon reapplied but was again rejected, in 2004.
Days before the November 2008 election, an anonymous US official confirmed to the Associated Press that Onyango was here illegally because she had lost her asylum claim — a report that injected the volatile immigration debate into the final moments of the presidential election and raised questions about how an illegal immigrant managed to stay in public housing.
In December 2008, Onyango’s lawyers persuaded the immigration court to reconsider her request for asylum. They argued that news of her attempts to gain asylum in the past would render her a “traitor’’ in Kenya and that the media had singled her out as the “illegal immigrant aunt’’ of Obama.
Her lawyers said she also asked to stay because of health problems. Details of these problems were redacted in the report — along with details of her past asylum cases — for privacy reasons, said Cecelia M. Espenoza, the lawyer who released the decision from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which governs the immigration courts within the Department of Justice.
The Department of Homeland Security, which sought her deportation, countered that the Associated Press article did not create a new risk for Onyango because it did not reveal details about her asylum claim and because Onyango and her lawyers had talked to the media. An agency spokesman declined to comment yesterday.
Shapiro agreed with Onyango’s assertion that she had been singled out for publicity and, unlike her relatives in Kenya, would be a “target.’’ He also outlined “serious interethnic conflict’’ that had consumed Kenya in recent years and resulted in hundreds of deaths. She belongs to the minority Luo ethnic group and said that she feared for her life if she had to return to Kenya.
In his ruling, Shapiro said Onyango’s testimony in February was sometimes confusing and inconsistent with what she said during her last quest for asylum six years ago. While Onyango did not prove that she suffered persecution while she lived in Kenya, he said he believed that her fear of future persecution was genuine.
He also acknowledged Onyango’s illegal status but did not hold it against her because there was no evidence that the federal government had ever pursued her deportation.
Some disputed the basis of Shapiro’s decision yesterday, and reiterated calls to release the full case to the public.
“The fact that she is the aunt of the president of the United States does raise questions of whether she received any special treatment,’’ said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
But her Cleveland-based lawyer, Scott Bratton, said Obama had no influence over the case.
Shapiro’s ruling cleared the way for Onyango to apply for a work permit and a green card and to become a US citizen, after a required waiting period. She has settled into a new apartment in public housing in South Boston, Bratton said.
“If people actually got to know her, they would realize she is a really good person with a really good heart that has volunteered in the community,’’ he said.
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at MSacchetti@globe.com.
