President Barack Obama’s uncle, Omar Onyango Obama (left), is an illegal alien who obtained an illegal driver’s license and Social Security card and evaded a deportation order for more than 20 years.
The Kenyan half-brother of the presidents alcoholic, bigamist father, two newspapers have reported, followed a similar path to Obamas illegal-alien aunt, who also ignored deportation orders but received political asylum despite ducking the law for years.
Police put the cuffs on Onyango Obama last week when he nearly crashed his SUV into a police cruiser. Obama was charged with operating under the influence of alcohol, negligent operation of a motor vehicle and failure to yield the right of way.
The question, however, is whether the 20-year-fugitive from immigration authorities will be deported, given the Obama Administrations interpretation and implementation of the failed DREAM Act. In June, John Morton, Obamas immigration control director, published a long list of stipulations permitting illegal aliens with family connections to stay in the United States. Last week, the Obama Administration officially declared the DREAM Act law.
What Happened
Onyango Obama had lived a quiet life in Massachusetts until last Wednesday, the Boston Globe reported, when police said the car he was driving darted in front of a police cruiser, nearly causing the officer to hit his car. Last week, he pleaded not guilty to drunk driving, failing to yield and negligent driving, the Globe reported, and is jailed at the Plymouth County House of Correction on an immigration detainer.
[F]ederal officials, who spoke about Obama’s immigration status on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about the case, said Obama had been told to leave in 1992, but he did not go.
The MetroWest Daily News reported more details. It says the 67-year-old whiskey peddler has had a license since at least 1992, and that because he had a drivers license in the Bay State he also had a Social Security number, too. Those are required to get a drivers license.
The newspaper did not report how Onyango Obama obtained the documents, but it did reveal [h]e had been ordered deported back to his native Kenya. Onyango worked at Conti Liquors, whose owner claimed he was the best employee Ive had.
Amazingly, the presidents uncle has crossed paths with the law before, but never fallen into the hands of immigration authorities until now. Obama has had some minor trouble while working at Conti Liquors, Framingham Police said, MetroWest Daily reported.
Last year, police conducted a sting by sending an underage man into the store to buy liquor. Obama sold the 19-year-old man alcohol without asking for an ID, police said. The store lost its license for three days.
In 2006, Obama also sold alcohol to two underage men using fake IDs, police said.
His Illegal History
Digging into the text of a reporters biography of Obamas globe-trotting father, the Globe detailed Onyango Obamas circuitous route to the hoosegow. According to The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father, Onyango came to the United States with his half-brother in 1963. Back then, his name was Omar Okech Obama, the Globe reported, and he was described in the book as tall and good-natured. According to the book, he stood out as apparently the only African student at the preparatory school, where boys wore blazers to class.
Onyango was a soccer star, and because he spoke with a British accent, he captivated his classmates with stories of wild animals and exploring the bush in Africa.
For reasons that are unclear, Obama left the school after two years and enrolled in the Newton public schools in the fall of 1965. By then, his older brother had returned to Kenya, and without him, Obama appeared to falter.
He dropped out of school and changed his name to O. Onyango Obama, according to the book, which matches the name of the man arrested yesterday and the name on his driver’s license.
For a while, he lived in an apartment on Perry Street in Cambridge that became a well known meeting place for Kenyan students.
It is unclear what happened to him next.
Whatever happened, immigration authorities must have caught up with him. They issued a deportation order in 1992. He popped up on the local police departments radar in 1994, when he was apparently the clerk on duty at a Dorchester convenience store as two masked men burst in, beat him with a sawed off shotgun, and robbed him, the Globe reported, quoting the book.
After that, the Globe reported, he managed to keep a low profile for almost 20 years, until he steered his white Mitsubishi SUV outside the Chicken Bone Saloon last week.
Obamas blood alcohol level was 0.14, nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08, the Globe reported. To get that drunk, the 175-pound fugitive would have downed five or six drinks in an hour.
Will They Deport Him?
Deporting the presidents illegal-alien uncle is no sure thing for two reasons, news reports suggest. For starters, As VDare.coms Joe Guzzardi wrote in a column at NJ.com, Obamas illegal-alien aunt, Zeituni Onyango, wangled asylum from a weak-kneed federal judge.
Recalled Guzzardi, First ordered deported in 2004 after overstaying a visa issued in 2000, Zeituni lived in public housing, supposedly available only to citizens and collected $700 in monthly disability checks.
But an unidentified benefactor interceded and hired famous immigration lawyer Margaret Wong to represent Zeituni in her efforts to remain. The unsurprising result a Boston federal judge stayed Zeituni’s deportation order. In 2010, Zeituni was granted political asylum and is now a legal U.S. resident.
The other problem is Onyango Obamas nephew, who unilaterally enacted the DREAM Act despite its failing in Congress. The denouement of that illegal usurpation of congressional prerogative occurred last week when Obama declared that his immigration deputies will reconsider 300,000 deportation cases using criteria established in the failed DREAM Act.
President Obama, whose citizenship is also in question, ordered the massive review under pressure from leftists and revanchist Hispanics, who claimed that lesser offenders, such as thieves and drunk drivers, were caught and slated for deportation because of the federal Secure Communities program, which encouraged state and municipal cops, and gave them the means, to share fingerprints with federal immigration authorities.
The move has been coming for some time. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Morton, the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have repeatedly said they will not deport illegals who meet the criteria of the DREAM Act. Those criteria include an illegal-aliens military service or educational status, provided he jumped the border as a child, has lived in the country for five years and is of good moral character.
Months ago, Napolitano flatly stated that her department would not deport illegal aliens who fit those criteria. Then Morton issued his notorious memorandum giving ICE agents prosecutorial discretion on deporting illegals. Morton added his own lengthy list of criteria, many of them relating to an illegal aliens relatives in the United States.
For instance, Mortons list includes the following:
- whether the person poses a national security or public safety concern;
- the person’s ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships;
- the person’s ties to the home country and condition in the country;
- the person’s age, with particular consideration given to minors and the elderly. …
- whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as a relative of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident;
- whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as an asylum seeker.
Although he has been a fugitive for 20 years, Onyango Obama fits each category. If he conjure an illness or two, like Zeituni Onyango, he can add more to the list. Given that the presidents aunt received asylum, for undisclosed reasons, of course, his uncle might too.
The White House has not intervened on the president’s uncles behalf. But the first thought that crossed Uncle Onyango’s mind after his arrest was calling his nephew: Said Obama to police, I think I’d like to call the White House,
Photo: Photo provided Aug. 30, 2011 by the Framingham Police Department shows Onyango Obama, arrested in Framingham, Mass.: AP Images