That’s where the dunham tax returns would come in; if they had 0 as a dependent then they would have custody.
And a FOIA of the dunham passport/travel would also come in handy here.
The simplest answer may be (and I say MAY) is that the dunhams were notified by SADO and Lolo that they wanted the kid to be in Hawaii and then one of the grandparents (or both ) went to Indonesia and brought the kid back with them.
Simple and no convoluted constructions.
He arrived in Hawaii in the summer of the grade five school year which we take to be 1971, the teacher was Mable Hefty and this lady remembers:
“...When I first met Barry, when he showed up I think it was the summer before fifth grade, he was hanging out at the tennis courts. And at the time that was the very Wimbledon-like, where everyone had to wear white clothes and white tennis shoes. Very careful about the soles of the shoes because you didn’t want to scuff up the courts, mark them up.
So yeah, I can picture him as this slightly — “chubby” is too strong, but rounded, short little guy, Barry Obama. And he told us that his father was an Indonesian king and that he was a prince, and after he finished school he was going to go back, and he would be a ruler in Indonesia. And I absolutely believed him.
I understand that he told his fifth-grade class that he was Kenyan royalty, but I never heard that story until years later. My sister and I remember very clearly that he was an Indonesian prince and that he would be going back there. So there was some reference to where he had come from, and the understanding was his family was there.
(Obviously this account doesn’t include the period he spent attending Noelani School in grade three at Christmas 1969, when he was photographed with Scott Inoue)
You want simple answers? I can think of one. There were two of them. Twins. One was going to rule Kenya, the other was going to rule Indonesia. One is now in the White House, the other was killed in a motor cycle accident. Don’t quote me, I’m finding it difficult to be serious.