Zeituni Onyango is Barack Obama’s aunt. And she’s an illegal immigrant living in the United States. cite
I’m on record for supporting wide immigration and opposing draconian policies against illegal immigrants. But it’s like this woman has gone out of her way to enrage opponents of illegal immigration.
As far as I can tell, she has expressed no regrets or remorse over living in the United States illegally. She just claims that she’s entitled to live here and the United States is obligated to let her do so. She’s been living on various welfare programs but she claims that the system is taking advantage of her.
Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please let someone come up a secretly-taped meeting between her and Glenn Beck in which he pays her five grand to pull this stunt.
So his aunt (father’s sister? aunt?) on his father’s side is on welfare. But this side of his family has had nothing to do with him in over 30 years, and he probably didn’t know about them anyways. Totally non-relavant.
Seriously. She’s an aunt in name only. She might as well be a stranger to him. He is not responsible for the behavior of his abandoning father’s relatives. This is not a story.
It’s gonna be real relevant soon. Now that the story is out, every day that the INS doesn’t slap her in jail and start deportation proceedings is another day that Obama’s enemies will will be screaming about his condoning illegal immigration. And condoning welfare queens, for that matter.
Isn’t Obama’s Aunt sort of old news? Last May, an immigration judge granted her asylum. She’s 100% legal now. She can stay in the US and she’s in the process of applying for citizenship which should take six years or so. She has a work permit & a social security card, and gets her green card next year.
According to the NYT, the reason for granting asylum was that she feared being pressured and threatened if she returned to Kenya because of her famous nephew. I don’t know. Maybe it’s even true. But even if Obama intervened directly, I couldn’t muster up a whole lot outrage about it one way or the other. It’s not like every other political family in the world doesn’t look after their relatives.
This isn’t a new story- it was covered when he was running for president. Last year Glenn Beck even made fun of the fact she has a limp (youtube).
How an aunt who he’s never met (or if he did it was for 12 minutes 30 years ago) even remotely affects him is a major stretch. My siblings are not only a lot more closely related to me than Obama’s father’s half-sister is to him but add to this the fact that I know them very well. My brother’s a liberal Democrat and my sister’s a tea partier. Both are pharmacists and rabid Auburn University football fans. All of this says absolutely jackshit about me. She’s an old illegal immigrant on welfare- you can find those in small towns and big cities in every single state of the nation, big whoop.
Apparently she was a minor issue in 2008 but I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of her until this week. (The Liberal Media once again ignoring the important stories obviously.) She’s back in the news because she gave a radio interview this week.
I’m not pitting the fact that she’s in the United States. I’m pitting her for being an idiot. She’s apparently one of those people who should be kept away from reporters. She’s probably doing more damage to the cause of illegal immigrants than Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo put together.
I am quite sure that a phone call from the WH was made to the idiot federal judge (who decided that this POS should live forever, off the MA taxpayers).
Face it, she has cost the taxpayers over $500,000 so far…but who cares, we can borrow the money!
Plus, this woman makes regular trips (via airplane)-I suspect that Obama is sending her money.
Cheer up, Americans…she ill probably live another 40 years, so buck up and keep paying!
I’ve seen and read plenty of comments by liberal Americans who seem to feel exactly the same way. In fact, they often go so far as to paint anyone who objects to illegal immigrants as racists, as though there could be no other possible reason for objecting to them.
Before some of you go crazy about conspiracy theories, how about reading the actual decision in the asylum case? Essentially, the judge ruled that whoever illegally leaked the story that she applied for asylum (who was unlikley to be a member of Obama’s family) is the one who rendered her susceptible to persecution.
As for her having a right to citizenship, everyone who wins an asylum case and takes the necessary steps to apply for permanent residency, and after 5 years, citizenship, might be said to have a right to citizenship. And yes, if I believed that persons unknown in the U.S. had possibly endangered my life by illegally leaking details of my asylum application, I’d probably think that the U.S owed me safe haven. As it happens, a Federal judge agreed with her.
During the Bush years, many hysterical idiots made claims about behind-the-scenes deals being made between Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, and other players. None could be bothered to cite their claims. And that irritated me, especially on this “fighting ignorance,” board, which seemed to be interested in fighting ignorance only when the ignorance was hurtful to the left. When the ignorance helped the left, the board’s motto seemed to be more along the lines of, “Token Protests Against Ignorance.”
But one thing I knew. I knew that the Right, my side, the side of fact-based, rational debate, would not stoop to these kinds of tactics.
Ha! Ha! I slay myself. With, you know, the comedy.
So, got any citations for any of those claims, ralph124c?
She did attend his swearing in as a Senator back in 2005, and his inauguration in 2008. Don’t know if she actually spent any time with him though, but she claims they’re “close.”
And in her own words from the interview, she’s Obama’s Auntie, and therefore the only one qualified to “pinch his ears and smack him” if he does something wrong.
Oh, and the money for the public housing she’s in? Not a taxpayer expense, but a “miracle from God”.
I agree it’s really got nothing to do with Obama, but you can expect to hear a lot of sound bites from this interview in Republican ads for the next 6 weeks. As someone said on the radio this morning, “She’s worse than Billy Carter.”
Yes, but that highlights the fundamental unfairness of tarring Obama with her idiocy. He can’t pick his family. I have a cousin that’s been in and out of jail and still (I think) struggles with a substance abuse problem. Is it my fault? Do my views on treatment or prosecution of substance abusers get diluted somehow?
Ping Obama for OBAMA’S stances. His family’s hijinks are meaningless.
It does become relevant for you if there is any reason to think that you were aiding and abetting your cousin in his drug use. Or if your actions on drug policy may have been based on trying to help out your ole cuz.