Kenyan Aunt of President Obama Wins Asylum in U.S. on Second Try
Zeituni Onyango had been ordered deported in 2004 after first asylum declined.
WASHINGTON, May 17, 2010— -- A U.S. immigration court has granted asylum toPresident Obama's Kenyan aunt, Zeituni Onyango, who was ordered deported from the U.S. in 2004 but stayed and appealed for the right to live here.
Onyango, 57, the half-sister of Obama's late father, made a personal appeal before a judge at a closed hearing in February, but details of the case she made remains unclear.
"The asylum process is confidential and she wants to keep it that way," her attorney Scott Bratton told the Associated Press today. "She doesn't want people to feel sorry for her."
Onyango, who moved to the U.S. in 2000, first applied for asylum in 2002 "due to violence in Kenya." That request was rejected and she was ordered to leave the country.
Instead of returning home, Onyango, who helped raise the president's half brothers and sister in Kenya and whom Obama affectionately referred to as "Auntie Zeituni" in his memoir, has remained in Boston, living in subsidized public housing.
Mike Rogers, a spokesman for her lawyer, Margaret Wong, told ABC News Onyango's medical conditions were part of the request for asylum and that two doctors testified on her behalf. She is said to suffer from Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder, which left her temporarily paralyzed.
Onyango's case, which first surfaced in October 2008, just before the presidential election, has drawn international attention and speculation about whether Obama would intervene on her behalf.
The White House has said that it had no involvement with Onyango's case, leaving it to follow an ordinary course before a federal judge who will apply the rule of law.
"You're telling me for the first time what the decision is," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today. "We had no involvement in that. And that's something that -- that we've always said should be dealt with through the normal course of how these cases are determined."
Gibbs has also said that the first family has not helped to pay any of Onyango's legal fees.
Onyango told The Associated Press she has not been in contact with anyone from the White House or been contacted by them. She did not respond to ABC News' requests for interviews.
"She hasn't been in touch with the president," Rogers said.
The Department of Homeland Security, which is part of the Obama administration, prosecuted the case, which was heard in a closed hearing before U.S. Immigration Court Judge Leonard Shapiro.
Shapiro is a civil service employee and not a political appointee, according to the court.
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