ICE Stonewalls On Status Of Uncle Onyango Obama

Following the publication of embarrassing internal government emails by Judicial Watch, the Homeland Security agency responsible for deporting criminal illegal immigrants is dodging questions about President Obama’s illegal alien uncle, who got busted for drunken driving last year in Massachusetts.

The case received widespread media coverage because the commander-in-chief’s uncle, Onyango Obama, had previously been deported to his native Kenya yet lived and worked in the Boston area and threatened to call the White House after getting arrested. He also had a valid Massachusetts drivers’ license, which was temporarily suspended after his drunken-driving arrest but, incredibly, has been reinstated by the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Uncle Onyango has also received special treatment from the feds, according to government documents obtained by Judicial Watch. They weren’t easy to obtain because the administration clearly wants to keep details of the case from the public, despite promises of unprecedented transparency. JW had to sue for the information, which was made public this month.

The records, released by JW in two parts (click here and here to see them), show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) withheld information on Uncle O’s release from the press and Congress and that the agency curiously permitted him to seek the reopening of deportation proceedings that had been closed in 1992. ICE leadership also tracked the politically sensitive case and granted Uncle O a special stay of deportation.

The records also include an embarrassing internal agency email from Brian Hale, ICE’s Assistant Director of the Office of Public Affairs, to ICE Director John Morton dated April 1, 2012, titled “Onyango Statement and TP’s [Talking Points].” The email (on page 43) confirms that ICE gave the president’s uncle favorable treatment.

We know that Uncle O still lives and drives in the Boston area but the Obama Administration refuses to reveal the next step. Will Homeland Security officials sit idly by while an illegal immigrant with a DUI roams freely?  Judicial Watch spent a great part of the week trying to get answers by repeatedly contacting ICE officials in Washington D.C. The question JW posed was simple: What is the status of the Onyango Obama case? The public certainly has the right to know.

But ICE blew JW off repeatedly. Multiple phone calls and messages to the ICE Public Affairs Office went unanswered before an agency spokeswoman named Gillian Christensen demanded the question be put in writing and sent to her email address at [email protected]. Multiple emails and several days later, JW has not received a response.