Obama's Uncle Omar Arrested; Next Step, Amnesty Or Asylum?

Another of President Obama's Kenyan relatives has been arrested in Massachusetts after living there illegally for decades. First it was Obama's Aunt Zeituni, who defied multiple deportation orders for several years until Immigration Judge Leonard I. Shapiro granted her asylum and legal residency in May 2010. Now, it's Obama's Uncle Omar, who got busted for drunk driving in Framingham last week and is being held without bail on an old federal immigration warrant.

An illegal immigrant from Kenya busted for drunken driving after nearly striking a cop car in Framingham is the uncle of President Obama, the Herald has learned.

Obama Onyango told cops he wanted to “call the White House” after he was nabbed for OUI Aug. 24 after nearly plowing his SUV into a police cruiser. He was arraigned Thursday and was ordered held without bail because he was wanted on a federal immigration warrant, officials said.

Mike Rogers, a spokesman for Cleveland immigration attorney Margaret Wong, who is representing Onyango, confirmed that the 67-year-old is the president’s uncle. Wong is the same lawyer who represented the president’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, in her fight to win asylum last year.

Reached at her apartment in a South Boston public housing complex today, Zeituni Onyango said of her brother’s arrest: “Why don’t you go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washingon, D.C. and ask your president? Not me.” She then hung up on a reporter.

[TSB note: That is an excellent idea. I will wait for the White House press corps to ask the President's spokesman about Uncle Omar.]

The White House also did not respond to a request for comment.

Zeituni and Obama Onyango are brother and sister, Rogers told the Herald today.

The two are the children of the president’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, and his third wife, Sarah, according to the London Times.

The Times also reported that Obama Onyango is the man referred to as “Uncle Omar” in the president’s 1995 book, “Dreams from My Father.” In the book, President Obama writes about his Uncle Omar as “the uncle who had left for America 25 years ago and had never come back.”

Sarah Obama is called “granny” by the president because she raised his father, Barack Obama Sr., whose mother was Hussein Obama’s second wife, Akumu, the Times reported.

Somehow, I don't feel up to doing the mental math involved in understanding that family tree. First, second, and third wives ... aunts and uncles however many times removed ... half (quarter?) brothers and sisters ... who knows about the cousins? It's more than a simple monogamist like me can comprehend.

But one thing I do understand. There is no chance, no chance at all, that Uncle Omar will ever come back from America.