Another deportation fugitive in the Obama family
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/08/30/another-deportation-fugitive-in-the-obama-family
By Michelle Malkin • August 30, 2011 09:55 AM Oh, Uncle Omar.
We’ll get to more of him in a moment.
Over the past decade, I’ve reported on America’s bottomless deportation abyss. After the 9/11 attacks, it finally dawned on federal homeland security officials that maybe it wasn’t such a smart policy to allow 400,000 illegal aliens who had been ordered deported to remain on the loose. These absconders who entered the country illegally, evaded judicial deportation orders, and absconded from justice were beneficiaries of a chaotic system clogged by conflicting statutes, incomprehensible administrative regulations, bureaucratic and judicial fiefdoms, selective enforcement, and a feeding frenzy of obstructionist immigration lawyers.
It is a climate which continues to favor illegal aliens’ rights over citizens’ safety.
I’ve reminded you repeatedly about these deportation truths as clueless politicians on both sides of the aisle blabber about “comprehensive immigration reform”/mass amnesty. In July, I pointed you to a Center for Immigration Studies study that updated and underscored many of the deportation fundamentals we’ve stressed over the years:
* A large percentage of aliens flee from removal proceedings – perhaps as many as 59 percent of all those released to await hearings. On a cost basis from the alien’s perspective, this makes sense. If you are in proceedings and have little chance of relief, why not treat the bond money (if it’s even required) as the cost of having been caught, and then flee, hoping to stay under the radar for as long as possible, perhaps until the next amnesty?
* Though fashionable in the Obama administration, the exercise of “prosecutorial discretion” is problematic for ICE field officers. If the alien that they decline to remove goes on to commit a heinous act, they could be subject to lawsuits from victims and will be held accountable by their own agency (even if agency leadership encourages them to use the tool).
* Even in today’s technology-driven world, charging an alien with immigration violations is a paperwork-intensive, cumbersome process that requires agents to fill out nearly 20 different forms each time.
* ICE officers are supposed to consider two key factors in determining whether to detain or release an alien in proceedings – if the alien is a flight risk and if he is a risk to the community. The latter factor obviously is given serious consideration, but it is equally obvious from the large number of absconders that officers don’t give the same weight to the likelihood of flight, especially considering the scarcity of funded detention space.
* The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides for several types of due process for aliens, depending on their circumstances of arrival and stay. The law does not require that all removals be ordered by an immigration judge.
* The option of Voluntary Return, where the alien requests to be returned home in lieu of formal removal proceedings, is not really “voluntary,” but is beneficial to the alien because it carries fewer consequences if the alien returns illegally. It also has become subject to overuse or misuse in recent years as a tool to increase the volume of removals, at the expense of more formal methods of removal that have more deterrent value.
* Immigration law provides for seven ways to remove an alien, which are explained in the report. Four of these options are relatively efficient, but used less frequently. If ICE chose to expand their use, the workload of the immigration court could be reduced and the immigration enforcement system would be less dysfunctional.
* The total number of apprehensions of illegal aliens by immigration enforcement agencies is less than half of what it was five years ago. For instance, the drop in apprehensions by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is often explained by improvements in border security; however, this rationale is suspect, as has been pointed out by the Rand Corp. in a study of border metrics. But ICE apprehensions also have dropped steeply, although there has been only a modest drop in the size of the illegal population inside the United States.
When the White House began issuing its deportation waivers last week, I reminded you again about the endless appeals process and immigration litigation lottery played by deportable aliens and their open-borders lawyers. And remember: Capitol Hill compounds the problem with a raft of special private relief bills that protect illegal alien criminals.
This chaos creates a friendly atmosphere in which those who plot to destroy the American dream can hide, work, and flourish. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that awoke snoozing feds to the nexus between systemic lax immigration enforcement and compromised homeland security, the paparazzi president has nothing to say about the deportation abyss. We’ll get photo ops and platitudes about never forgetting. The open-borders lobby will get a continuing windfall of get-out-of-deportation passes.
In November 2008, Barack Obama’s unemployed illegal alien aunt who had been living in public housing for years received special dispensation from the Bush administration despite evading deportation orders for years. Despite failing to win an asylum bid and despite ignoring a judicial determination that she return home, Zeituni Onyango won another bid in the immigration court system. In May 2010, the unemployed illegal alien deportation fugitive won her case and remains in the country today — free to moan and whine about how badly America has treated her while living on the taxpayers’ dime.
And then came Uncle Omar. The brother of Auntie Zeituni and half-brother of President Obama’s father, “Omar” Obama Onyango was arrested for drunk driving over the weekend (h/t to Michael Graham) and is being detained on an immigration detainer. He did have a job, unlike his sister. It was, alas, at a liquor store. The Boston Herald reports today that the uncle (whom Obama referred to in his best-selling “Dreams of My Father” as “Uncle Omar”) “had a valid Social Security number for at least 19 years, despite being an illegal immigrant ordered to be deported back to Kenya.”
The Herald further adds:
Mike Rogers, a spokesman for Cleveland immigration attorney Margaret Wong, who is representing Onyango, said he “wouldn’t know how” Onyango obtained a Social Security number. 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 yesterday, Zeituni Onyango said of her brother’s arrest: “Why don’t you go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., and ask your president? Not me.” She then hung up on a reporter.
The bust came just days after another illegal immigrant was charged with running down and killing a 23-year-old man in Milford.
Asked about the issue yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick said: “You know my stance: Illegal is illegal. We need comprehensive immigration reform.”
More nonsense and pabulum from America’s open-borders know-nothings. They’ve turned the American Dream on its head. Entry into this country is no longer treated as a privilege, but an irrevocable right for every last griping Zeituni and reckless Omar.
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Doug Powers cracks: “If the president was serious about rounding up illegals he’d host a family reunion and have ICE throw a net over the South Lawn.”
