Officials to probe Obama aunt immigration case leak

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Government officials have opened an investigation to determine how information about an immigration case involving the aunt of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama became public.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told USA TODAY that her agency asked its inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the matter Saturday after the Associated Press reported that Zeituni Onyango, a half-sister of Obama's late father, is under a deportation order and has been living in Boston illegally.

Nantel refused to discuss details of the case. "ICE is prohibited from commenting on any individual's status or the status of any case," she said in an email.

Efforts to find out who discussed Onyango's case are underway, Nantel said.

The investigation will focus on "whether there was a violation of policy in publicly disclosing individual case information," she said.

According to the Associated Press, Onyango has been living in public housing in Boston despite having been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya.

In a statement released to the AP, the Obama campaign said the Illinois senator did not know that his aunt was in the country illegally and "believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed."

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the campaign is also returning contributions from Obama's aunt. The AP reported that Onyango contributed $260. Under federal campaign financing law, only U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents can donate to candidates.

It's not the first time sensitive government documents connected to figures in this year's presidential campaign have been compromised. Earlier this year, two State Department officials were fired after the passport files of Obama, McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Onyango is a member of an extended Kenyan family that Obama did not meet until he was an adult and traveled to visit the homeland of his father. Obama's father returned to Africa when his son was a youngster and visited only once before he died in Kenya.

An adviser to Republican John McCain's campaign, Mark Salter, said he had no comment on the reports about Obama's relative. "It's a family matter," Salter said.

Obama was raised for the most part by his mother and her parents in Hawaii. He first met his father's side of the family when he traveled to Africa 20 years ago. He referred to Onyango as "Auntie Zeituni" when describing the trip in his memoir, saying she was "a proud woman."

Obama's campaign said he had seen her a few times since that meeting, beginning with a return trip to Kenya with his future wife, Michelle, in 1992. Onyango visited the family in Chicago on a tourist visa at Obama's invitation about nine years ago, the campaign said, stopping to visit friends on the East Coast before returning to Kenya.

She attended Obama's swearing-in to the U.S. Senate in 2004, but campaign officials said Obama provided no assistance in getting her a tourist visa and doesn't know the details of her stay. The campaign said he last heard from her about two years ago when she called saying she was in Boston, but he did not see her there.

The AP could not immediately reach Onyango for comment. When a reporter went to her home Friday night, no one answered the door. A neighbor said she was often not home on weekends. Onyango did not return telephone and written messages left at her home.

Onyango was instructed to leave the country by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.

It was unclear why her request was rejected in 2004. Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.
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