BOSTON — A judge who granted asylum to President Barack Obama’s African aunt ruled she deserved to stay in the United States because a federal government official leaked her status to a news organization, making her a potential target for persecution in her native Kenya.
U.S. Immigration Judge Leonard Shapiro blasted the leak by the unnamed official in his 29-page ruling granting asylum to Zeituni Onyango in May. His written decision was released this week through the Freedom of Information Act and first was reported by The Boston Globe.
Shapiro found that a federal government official disclosed Onyango’s immigration status and her relationship to Obama to The Associated Press three days before the November 2008 election in which Obama was elected.
AP’s story stated that Onyango, the half sister of Obama’s late father, had been living illegally in the United States after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years earlier.
Shapiro found that because Onyango’s identity and status were disclosed, she would be a target in Kenya not only for those who oppose the United States and Obama but for members of the Kenyan government “who oppose President Obama’s politics and/or his ethnicity, which the Respondent shares.”
