Obama’s aunt is here ILLEGALLY living in poverty, and is a deportation FUGITIVE. She’s collecting WELFARE and has DONATED to Obama’s campaign, ILLEGALLY! Obama. Family in poverty as he makes millions. Complete lawlessness. Giveaway your hard earned tax payer money to illegal fugitives. CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.
Ace of Spades – Commenter (1 November 2008)
Is it even possible for nativists to make an argument without using ALL CAPS? Nativists want you believe that Onyango’s immigration status makes her a criminal. Not true.
The Associated Press explains:
Onyango’s refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system. Estimates vary, but many experts believe there are more than 10 million such immigrants in the United States.
Associated Press – Eileen Sullivan and Elliot Spagat (1 November 2008)
Like at least 40% of unauthorized migrants in the U.S., Onyango is in violation of civil law, not criminal law, with regards to to her immigration status. Nativists yell the words, “ILLEGAL”, and “AMNESTY”, until they’re blue in the face to try and make you believe that all unauthorized migrants are criminals The truth is that most unauthorized migrants are guilty of violating the same type of law that speeding is classified under. I don’t see nativists using the words “ILLEGAL DRIVER” to describe everyone on the freeway that speeds.
There are additional legal complications in Onyango’s case. Nativists are jumping all over the fact that she’s living in public housing, and that she has allegedly donated money to the Obama campaign. I’m not an immigration lawyer, and cannot comment on the additional complications of Onyango’s legal situation. The U.S. immigration system is broken and complicated. The only thing anyone who is not a U.S. immigration lawyer can truly know about U.S. immigration law, is that they don’t know anything at all.
I know a lot of nativists are going to be enraged at the Onyango’s alleged violations, but I’m going to ask everyone to take a step back from all of this. What if “ILLEGAL ALIEN”, “WELFARE”, and “ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN DONATIONS”, weren’t the first things you heard about Onyango? Imagine instead, that you had read this profile of Onyango in the Boston Globe:
Onyango… is paid a small stipend for working as a health advocate in her housing complex.
[…]
For three years, she was a volunteer with Experience Corps, a nonprofit that trains adults over 55 to work with children in public schools, said Mary Gunn, the group’s executive director.
In a profile on the Experience Corps website, Onyango is described as a “former computer systems coordinator” who says she wanted to volunteer in the schools because “I felt that I should help the children in my community.”
“I love people and enjoy interacting with them,” Onyango said. “Also, I was idle, and this was a chance to get involved.”
Gunn said Onyango is a wonderful person, but said, “Zeituni wishes for me not to comment, and I want to honor her wish.”
Michael Levenson – Boston Globe (31 October 2008)
Read that passage carefully. Now, I can’t personally vouch for Onyango. I know far too little about her. From what little information there is though, it seems to me Onyango is an amazing person. She’s not a wealthy person, but still she dedicates her time to helping her community.
In a country that refuses to recognize her as a real person, she has still chosen an occupation where she assists her community. To reiterate, she has dedicated years to bettering a community in which nativists don’t even believe she has a right to exist If you think about it, from what little information we have, everything that nativists have pointed to that is bad about Onyango stems from the fact that she had the misfortune of being born into a different country, and had the audicity to seek a better life for herself in the U.S. Nativists will call Onyango an “ILLEGAL ALIEN” but I thought the principles the U.S. was founded on state that the “pursuit of happiness” is an “inALIENable right.”
Nativists will use this association to smear Obama’s character, to make him “an other.” As is typical, nativists hope to divide the U.S. rather than bring it together. The fact that Obama’s aunt is an unauthorized migrant doesn’t make him “an other.” It makes him one of the millions of U.S. citizens, and legal U.S. residents, with a family member that has been affected by an atrocious U.S. immigration system.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are 3.1 million U.S. citizen children with unauthorized migrant parents. That doesn’t even count the many millions more that have aunts, brothers, and cousins, who nativists like to label “illegal.” The fact of the matter is that the U.S. is a country where families sit united around the table and are divided by their immigration status: A child who is a U.S. citizen, a father who is a legal migrant, a mother who is unauthorized, is just one of the many typical arrangements that so many U.S. residents find themselves in.
The U.S. Latin@ community understands this and that’s why they’re voting overwhelmingly in favor of Obama. Not since slavery has it been legal and acceptable in the U.S. to give completely different sets of rights to different sets of people in the U.S. The pro-migrant side has been losing the U.S. migration debate because for the longest time advocates assumed this was a rational policy debate.
The U.S. migration debate is not a debate about policy. It’s a culture war. It’s a debate about what fundamental question of what it means to be an “American.” Nativists have usually have a racist definition of the word “American.” It’s up to the good people to stand up and say that the U.S. is a tolerant nation, and that we won’t stand for the hate that seeks to dehumanize the millions of unauthorized migrants in the U.S. whose only sin is to seek a better life for themselves and their children.
This sounds like yet another game-changer. “Stop focusing on the economy and the wars, America! Don’t you realize that Zeituni Onyango is living in Boston?!”
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p> – Dan
this right up until election day.
Why else would the Republican Party/federal government release the information now?
Any citizen more concerned with freedom than skin color will zero in on this passage
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p>
This is definitely a smear campaign.
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p>Link
great catch with four days to go…harass and maybe get a little old lady deported while perhaps casting some kind of guilt by association on her nephew.
Pulitzer Prize quality work it ain’t.
Gotta love the high quality journalism.
But… they should bounce her back to her native soil. She is not an American nor did she obey our laws to get here. She’s Illegal here. She should get bounced immediately according to whatever legal standards are currently followed.
Or did she just stay illegally?
She was ordered to leave in 2003 and but defied the court and continues to lives courtesy of public assistance right here in the peoples republic.
Now what does that say ..
They should change the inscription on the Statue of Liberty from “Give me your tired, your poor…” to “Get the F¥& out!!!”
You can put your choice, “doors wide open. come on in, terrorists, diseased, need a job – come in and take them all, need healthcare – come and get all the free care you want…”
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p>Can you explain to me why having a controlled immigration policy equates to being against immigration? Can you explain to all the people in the world who wait their turn, fill out the forms, go through our procedures… why they don’t deserve to be here but illegals like Obama’s Aunt do?
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p>As Obama himself said, just stick to the law.
Just dont think about sending me the f’ng bill
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p>YES ON 1
obscure aunt of a presidential candidate, willingly living a quiet and anonymous life, be hounded out of the country by a pack of rabid Republicans and ambitious reporters.
living peaceful lives in obscurity, but then I regain my senses. Then they find out Mr. Smith around corner escaped from jail 15 years ago where he was serving life for killing his wife. Should he go to jail or “just leave him be” and let him continue his passion of teaching Civics class at the high school or as you put it “… willingly living a quiet and anonymous life” PS you forgot ILLEGAL!. Justice is Justice!
You’re seriously equating someone who overstayed a visa with a murderer?
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p>Tell me, how do you feel about the revelation that Joe the Plumber was living quietly minding his own business and suddenly it was revealed he owed a ton of back-taxes? I think that’s the more appropriate (and obvious) comparison.
Laws are laws. We shouldn’t be deciding what laws we follow and which ones we just ignore. Same with immigration… follow the laws or change them.
This will have as much impact as the last-minute story about W’s DWI: virtually none, in MHO.
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p>The only thing that can make a significant difference to this election now is: (1) GOTV on election day, and (2) counting shenanigans/voter suppression by local politicians in various jurisdictions.
This doesn’t even have anything to do with Obama.
I’d also like to add…
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p>A few days ago I lambasted the public employees who fereted out the information on Joe the Plumber saying they should go to jail or be fired for using their access to tax records… to “spy” on Joe (or Sam…) and then release this information to the public. I feel the same way about Obama’s Aunt. If any public employee broke the law by looking up her records… then they should be fired or go to jail as well.
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p>Again, I think Obama’s Aunt should be booted out of the country since she is here illegally and in direct defiance of a court order. I believe we have laws about defying court orders. I am sure this won’t happen regardless of the election as some bullshit reason will be given regarding her health of safety due to her relationship with Obama. Maybe with some punishment for their “crimes” we can “dissuade” scrutiny of friends or family of political candidates by public employees for malicious reasons.