Homeland Security Illegal Immigration
1/27/2009
Source …..
The Bush administration quietly withdrew in the weeks after Barack Obama’s election a new rule requiring high-level approval before federal agents nationwide could arrest fugitive immigrants.
The Homeland Security Department had originally imposed the unusual directive days before Obama’s election, an order that would have affected Zeituni Onyango, the half-sister of Obama’s late father who had been living in the country illegally. She had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya.
Onyango’s case will be determined at an immigration court hearing in April.
The directive from Immigration and Customs Enforcement expressed concerns about “negative media or congressional interest,” according to a newly disclosed federal document obtained by The Associated Press. The department lifted the immigration order weeks later, on Nov. 26.
The directive made clear that U.S. officials worried about possible election implications of arresting Onyango, who at the time was living in public housing in Boston. She is now believed to be living in Cleveland.
An immigration judge stayed her deportation order on Dec. 17 and reopened her case requesting asylum on Dec. 30. She has a hearing on April 1 in a Boston immigration court, Elaine Komis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Executive Office of Immigration Review, said Monday.
Several years ago, Obama’s aunt sought asylum from Kenya. The East African nation has been fractured by violence in recent years, including a period of two months of bloodshed after December 2007 that killed 1,500 people.
Obama has said he didn’t know his aunt was living in the United States illegally and believed that laws covering the situation should be followed.
The chronology of events means there was a brief window – between Nov. 26 and Dec. 17 – when immigration agents could have arrested and deported Onyango without obtaining the high-level approval required in the government’s Oct. 31 directive.
Harold
