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A rule quietly imposed by the Bush administration right before Barack Obama was elected president remains in place. It requires immigration agents to get approval from higher-ups before arresting fugitives in cases where the arrest might generate what Homeland Security terms "negative media or congressional interest." The department's directive was issued October 31st, hours before The Associated Press disclosed the illegal status of Obama's aunt from Kenya. Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUH'-nee awn-YAHN'-goh), was instructed to leave the country four years ago but never left. She spent time in Boston and is now reportedly living in Cleveland. She's fighting deportation and was...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department still is requiring high-level approval before federal immigration agents can arrest fugitives, a rule quietly imposed by the Bush administration days before the election of Barack Obama, whose aunt has been living in the United States illegally.

Well, isn’t this special? After overstaying her visa, ignoring a federal deportation order for years, escaping apprehension in Boston, and taking refuge in Cleveland, the destitute illegal alien aunt of Barack Obama somehow found her way to Washington, D.C., for her nephew’s inauguration. Federal immigration officials couldn’t find her, but she was spotted by several media outlets and partygoers around the Beltway. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported: Ohio Democrats put aside the state’s financial troubles and cold weather Sunday night to celebrate its part in electing Barack Obama to the White House. Just a few blocks from Obama’s soon-to-be residence,...

No one knows how many thousands of illegal immigrants live in public housing at a time when hundreds of thousands of citizens and legal residents are stuck waiting years for a spot. The issue made headlines in November with news that an aunt of President-elect Barack Obama was living in Boston public housing while in the country illegally. At last word, that woman's attorney said she was staying with relatives in Cleveland and would fight a deportation order.

Obamas may come out of woodwork: Just days before the election, the media focused briefly on the news that Barack Obama's paternal aunt was living illegally in public housing in Boston. While the story didn’t get much traction, it offered a glimpse of things to come: With the spotlight shining so hard on the next president, distant family members are likely to get caught up in the glare. The Obama family tree, by contrast, is a veritable ancestral Banyan, with roots and branches extending to four continents. There are many half-siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. That means there may be...

Zeituni Onyango was ordered to leave the country in 2004 by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. Her illegal-immigrant status was revealed to the public days before Obama's election on November 4, and now she is fighting the deportation order. Contrary to popular opinion, Obama will not have executive power to unilaterally grant her, or anyone, legal immigration status when he becomes president. His only course of action would be to appeal to Congress to file a private bill providing citizenship. But for President Obama, it would be an avenue dotted with pitfalls....

BOSTON, (AP) -- Zeituni Onyango came to the United States seeking asylum from her native Kenya but was turned down and ordered to leave the country in 2004. Four years later, she is still here. And her nephew is about to become president of the United States. Onyango's family connection to Barack Obama has thrown a spotlight on a phenomenon many Americans might find startling: An estimated half-million immigrants are living in the United States in defiance of deportation orders.

According to my sources, the Bush administration issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams to spare Obama embarrassment over his Kenyan half-aunt, Zeituni Onyango.

President-elect Barack Obama's aunt is in hiding with relatives in Cleveland and mulling her options to fight a deportation order, according to her immigration lawyer. Margaret W. Wong, a lawyer in Cleveland, issued a statement saying Zeituni Onyango did not wish to comment further. The 56-year-old half-sister of Obama's late father had said she would speak to a reporter after the election, but instead declined to comment and fled her apartment in the Boston Housing Authority for Ohio. "Her wish is for this matter to remain private," Wong said in a statement. "She is in Cleveland with close family members...

Obama knew his dear Auntie Onyango was here illegally. Obama said he supported his Dear Auntie's deportation before the election. Zeituni Onyango and Nephew Barack. Onyango lives in a disabled-access flat in a South Boston slum. She has lived in public housing for 5 years. She even illegally donated to Obama's campaign. (Rush Limbaugh photo) Obama's dear illegal alien Auntie Onyango is on the lam. She fled her publically funded housing in Boston and is hiding out with relatives in Cleveland. FOX News reported: President-elect Barack Obama's aunt intends to fight a deportation order and hopes to remain in the...

President-elect Obama's aunt intends to fight a deportation order and remain in the United States, her immigration lawyer said Friday. The Associated Press found that Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), 56, is staying with relatives in Cleveland after fleeing her public housing apartment in Boston. She had been living there five years.

Caught up in a controversy over her immigration status, Barack Obama’s aunt hasn’t been seen at the South Boston housing project where she lives for days, neighbors say. Zeituni Onyango, a quiet 56-year-old Kenyan native, lived in total obscurity until a week ago when The Times of London reported that she was Obama’s aunt. She is the half-sister of Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr. and is believed to be the “Aunti Zeituni” in Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” Two women who know Onyango and live in the same housing complex off West Broadway said they hadn’t seen Onyango in...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government arrested and deported record numbers of illegal immigrants — nearly 350,000 — in the past year, authorities say. It has also naturalized a record number of new Americans during the same time period, more than 1 million. Bush administration officials consider these to be great accomplishments within a system that President-elect Obama calls "broken and overwhelmed" on his transition Web site.

CNSNews.com) - A loophole in a Massachusetts state law has allowed Zeituni Onyango - Barack Obama’s aunt and an illegal immigrant - to live in state-funded public housing in Boston since 2003, even though a federal immigration judge ordered Onyango to leave the country in 2004 after her request for asylum was denied. The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) told CNSNews.com that illegal immigrants like Onyango can qualify for the state-funded housing in Massachusetts because, unlike federally funded programs, Massachusetts forbids the BHA from even asking about an applicant’s immigration status.

WHAT? Didn’t Barack just tell us that he didn’t know Auntie was here illegally? Sure. Just like he didn’t know Tony Rezko was a crook. Never heard Reverend Wright say anything offensive. Never knew that BFF’s Bill & Bernardine were indicted domestic terrorists. Didn’t know Cousin Odinga vowed to institute Sharia Law. Didn’t know that Rashid Khalidi hated Israel… Barack doesn’t KNOW how to tell the truth! From The American Spectator: Senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick were aware that Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, was living in the United States illegally and in a South...

ALL IN THE FAMILY Senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick were aware that Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, was living in the United States illegally and in a South Boston public-housing project, and were monitoring her at the request of senior Obama campaign officials, according to a current employee for Obama's key political consulting firm, AKP&D Message and Media. Back in early 2007, as Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod was organizing and planning the Obama campaign, he identified Obama's unique family situation -- a number of half-brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, some living overseas -- as...

The weekend's AP report about Barack Obama's "illegal aunt" brought to mind this WW series about Sen. Gordon Smith's company in Eastern Oregon hiring undocumented immigrants. There are some key differences. The timing of the report on Obama, just 72 hours before Election Day, raised suspicions it's a Republican stink bomb. While Smith called our cover story a "slimeball," it certainly did not involve a leak that may have violated federal law. But in both stories, illegal immigration is the central issue. And in both cases, the candidate's defense is essentially the same: I didn't know, and the law should...

<p>Violent political unrest in Kenya has prevented the half-sister of Sen. Barack Obama from returning to her native African homeland after visiting the United States during the Iowa caucus campaign, WND has learned. Auma Obama is now stranded in New Hampshire and indefinitely in the U.S., according to U.S. security officials involved with the presidential campaign.</p>

By now, most people have heard about The Associated Press report that Sen. Barack Obama has a distant aunt –- his deceased father’s half-sister -– living in Boston who is an undocumented alien. They may also know that Zeituni Onyango, from Kenya, was denied political asylum by an immigration judge four years ago. As Josh Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo reported Saturday, Rep John Conyers (D-Mich), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee wrote an angry letter to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security, saying the disclosure, by at least one “federal law enforcement official,” according to...

"I haven't been able to get in touch with her..."