Judge blasts Obama aunt asylum-case leak
A judge who granted asylum to President Barack Obama’s African aunt said she deserved to stay in the US because a government official who leaked her status made her a potential target in her native Kenya.
US Immigration Judge Leonard Shapiro blasted the leak by the unnamed official in his 29-page ruling granting asylum to Zeituni Onyango in May.
His written decision was released this week through the Freedom of Information Act and was first reported by The Boston Globe.
Judge Shapiro found that a government official disclosed Ms Onyango’s immigration status and her relationship to Mr Obama to The Associated Press three days before the November 2008 election in which Mr Obama was elected as the first black president.
The news agency’s subsequent story said that Ms Onyango, the half sister of Mr Obama’s late father, had been living illegally in the US after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years earlier.
Information about Ms Onyango’s case was disclosed and confirmed by two sources, one of them a federal law enforcement official. Ms Onyango, 58, has been living in local authority housing in Boston.
Judge Shapiro called the disclosure “a reckless and illegal violation of her right to privacy which has exposed her to great risk” and criticised the official for using the information for political reasons.
The judge found that because Ms Onyango’s identity and status were disclosed, she would be a target in Kenya, not only for those who opposed the US and Mr Obama, but for members of the Kenyan government “who oppose President Obama’s politics and/or his ethnicity, which the respondent shares”.
A Department of Homeland Security official said an internal investigation launched into the leak in 2008 was expected to conclude soon.
One of Ms Onyango’s Cleveland-based lawyers, Scott Bratton, said the asylum process was confidential, in part to protect people who may be sent back to their home countries. Leaking the information just before the election put Ms Onyango at greater risk, he said.
“She is known to everybody now,” he said. “She is known to have applied for asylum. She’s been thrust into the spotlight, and because of that she has a fear of returning.”
In Mr Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story Of Race and Inheritance,“ he affectionately referred to Ms Onyango as Auntie Zeituni and described meeting her during his 1988 trip to Kenya.
