President Obama's Aunt to Seek Political Asylum in USA

President Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenya native who has been living here illegally since 2004, is set to make a second bid for political asylum tomorrow. Zeituni Onyango, 57, insists that she never told the President that she was in this country illegally, but will argue that her relationship to the President makes her a political target if she was to be forced to return to Kenya.

"She wants to stay in this country so bad," said Mike Rogers, a spokesman for her attorney.

Onyango moved to the United States in 2000 and first applied for asylum in 2002. Her request was rejected, and she was ordered deported in 2004, but she did not leave the country and continued to live in public housing in Boston. Source: Obama aunt girds for new bid to avoid deportation, Associated Press

Onyango's status was revealed just days before the November 2008 presidential election. A judge later suspended her deportation order and granted Onyango a new asylum hearing.

Onyango's immigration attorney, Margaret Wong of Cleveland, said last year that her client first applied for asylum "due to violence in Kenya," but she did not reveal what grounds she has cited in her renewed bid for asylum. The East African nation is fractured by cycles of electoral violence every five years.

Onyango says that she no longer has any contact with her nephew or his family.

Onyango did not return telephone calls seeking comment this week. But in an interview in November, she said she did not tell Obama she was in the country illegally and never asked him to intervene. She also said she has exiled herself from Obama and his family because she didn't want to become political fodder for his foes.

"Before, we were family. But right now, there is a lot of politics, and me, I am not interested in any politics at all," Onyango told The Associated Press at the time. Source: Associated Press

Whether she's interested or not, any decision in Onyango's case will generate political coverage, commentary and speculation about the role President Obama played in his aunt's quest for asylum.