Barack Obama's uncle claims future president stayed with him in 1980s
Onyango "Omar" Obama tells immigration hearing his nephew spent three weeks with him in Massachusetts
10:57PM GMT 03 Dec 2013
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Barack Obama's uncle has claimed that the future president stayed with him while he was living in the US illegally, contradicting an apparent White House statement that the pair had never met.
Onyango "Omar" Obama told a court that his nephew lived with him in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for three weeks while studying at Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
After Mr Obama, 69, was arrested for drink-driving in 2011 and found to be an undocumented migrant, the Boston Globe reported: "He has never met his famous nephew, according to the White House."
The President's uncle made his new claim during an immigration hearing in Boston on Tuesday, where he was granted the right to stay and work legally in the US after more than 40 years as an illegal alien.
He came to the US when he was 19 with the help of his half-brother, Barack Obama Sr., but stayed after his student visa expired in 1970. He was twice ordered deported in the 1980s, but eluded officials.
Stressing that he was a taxpayer, a good neighbour and met the requirements for permanent residency, Judge Leonard Shapiro granted him a green card. "Thank you, your honour," Mr Obama said.
Under US law, immigrants who are "out of status" may become permanent residents if they arrived before 1972, have maintained continuous residence and are found to be of "good moral character".
When he was arrested in August 2011, he was living in Framingham, a suburb of Boston, and working in an off-licence. It was alleged that he told one of the arresting officers: "I think I'll call the White House," which he later denied. He agreed to serve a year's probation and attend classes on alcohol.
Barack Obama wrote in his memoir Dreams From My Father that he learned about "Omar, the uncle who had left for America 25 years ago and had never come back" during a 1987 visit to Kenya.
The future president began studying at Harvard Law School the following year, graduating in 1991. He made no further reference to Uncle Omar in the memoir, which was published in 1995.
Asked during his hearing on Tuesday whether he had any relations in the US, the older Mr Obama said: "I do have a nephew," adding: "He's the president of the United States."
In 2010, Zeituni Onyango – Omar's sister and the president's aunt – was granted asylum by the same judge after being discovered living illegally in Boston, having ignored a 2004 deportation order.
The judge's reasoning was not made public. Ms Onyango had arrived in the US in 2000 and made a previous unsuccessful application for asylum based on violence in her native Kenya.
When she was discovered just days before the 2008 election, Mr Obama said he did not know that his aunt had been living in America illegally.
