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The White House reversed course Thursday, saying that President Barack Obama had lived briefly with an uncle who has just won a reprieve from deportation -- despite previously indicating they had not met.
Kenya-born Onyango Obama, 69, a half-brother of the president's late father, won the right to stay in the United States as a permanent resident after a federal court ruling on Tuesday.
The White House had said in November 2011, when news of the uncle's immigration hearings first surfaced, that there was no evidence that Obama had ever met his uncle.
But Onyango Obama contradicted those statements in the court hearing, saying the young Barack Obama had stayed with him while he was a student at Harvard Law School.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that no one in the president's press office had previously asked the U.S. leader if he had known his uncle -- as he tried to explain the apparently misleading earlier White House statements.
He said he circled back to check with the president following the latest court case.
"I thought it was the right thing to do to go ask him. Nobody had asked him in the past, and the president said that he, in fact, had met (his uncle) when he moved to Cambridge for law school, and that he stayed with him for a brief period of time until the president's apartment was ready."
"They saw each other once every few months while the president was in Cambridge, and then, after law school, they gradually fell out of touch."
He said the president had not seen his uncle in 20 years and not spoken to him for around 10 years.
The White House says it has had no involvement in the uncle's case and that it was handled appropriately by US immigration authorities.
Onyango Obama arrived in the United States in October 1963 on a student visa and has lived in the Boston region ever since.
At a hearing in Boston, at which he was granted a permanent resident's green card, Onyango Obama testified that his nephew was the U.S. president.
"I do have a nephew," he was quoted as saying by The Boston Globe. "He's the president of the United States."
© (c) 2013 AFP
20 Comments
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Jean ValJean
Yet another bald-faced lie from Obama, Barack Soetoro.
bass4funk
They just keep coming, don't they?
TorafusuTorasan
@Jean, the Soetero clan was his Indonesian stepfather's family. His half sister is correctly named Soetero. Nobody mixes up her surname, so why is it harder for you to keep it straight with our president? If there were any doubts about his real name, Joe Arpaio would have already sent one of his deputies to Indonesia to putz around like he did to Hawaii last year.
If you are interested in Obama's actual parental lineage, you'll have to look in Kenya, Kansas, Hawaii, and other places his blood relatives settled (like New England in the case of this uncle). Of the three places I just mentioned, I'm guessing you never toss out Kansas as an epithet at Obama's family background. "Horrors, the president is a Christian with Kansas roots on his mom's side!" just doesn't get anyone riled up, right? Why is it always about exotic Kenya, a place that Obama has visited even fewer times than he did this long lost uncle on the East Coast?
Madverts
"Independent" conservatives have spent the past 5 odd years being very very angry about Obama's election, I see no logical reason for them to desist,if anything it is going to get worse. They've made it clear they are prepared to believe and peddle anything slanderous about Obama to get the oar in, it can only be described as the thinly veiled racism and nonsense that oozes from today's angry white man's conservative independ-a-party.
RomeoRII
@Jean: It's not a lie, it's Baracks evolution of the truth. Yeah, thats the ticket.
RR
Jean ValJean
Barack Obama was adopted by Lolo Soetoro and, for most of his life as a child and teenager, Barack was commonly known as Barry Soetoro. The adoption was processed in Indonesia after Barry and his mother moved to Indonesia. The adoption was carried out in Indonesia and not the United States.
Barry Obama’s mom married an Indonesian student named Lolo Soetoro in 1966. The new family moved to Indonesia in 1967 and the six year old Barry was enrolled in school. Obama was enrolled by his parents in a public school, Fransiskus Assisi School, a public school, in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The school registration clearly states Obama’s name as “Barry Soetoro,” and lists his citizenship as Indonesian. Obama’s father is listed as Lolo Soetoro. He is identified as a Citizen of Indonesia.
Barry Obama was adopted in Indonesia, not the United States.
One other piece of circumstantial evidence that Barack Obama was, at one point in his life, legally known as Barry Soetoro comes from the 1980 divorce of Obama’s birth mother and his adopted father, Lolo Soetoro.
You do not stipulate in a divorce decree that a “child” older than 18 but “still dependent on the parties for education” is part of the settlement unless there is a legal tie to the step-father.
So the question is, when did his name legally change to the current moniker?
Madverts
Thanks for the cut'n'paste Jean, but it does little to explain to me this obsession you Republi..... whoops..... independent conservatives - sorry - have with "Barry"'s origins.
The US is lucky to have had him as a leader. Imagine what he could have achieved had the Independent Conservative Party not only been tirelessly working against him, but also attempting to destroy the US from the inside since January 2009!
lostrune2
Who cares about politicians' relations with their relatives. It's how they govern that affects us.
Jean ValJean
" The US is lucky to have had him as a leader."
Ah, yes, because he's so wonderful. He did say he was really good at killing people, with drones, that is. Jimmy Carter is relieved, too.
Serrano
President Obama doesn't need these pesky relatives, lol.
RomeoRII
Funny to read the shrinking number of Obama defenders -- now mostly non-Americans -- shrieking at the top of their lungs in a losing effort to defend Obama and his constant stream of lies.
Nice try though.
RR
SuperLib
Fascinating story.
Next?
Madverts
Indeedy jean, drone strikes have been most effective, especially compared to the bungled attempts of his predecessor that did nothing bit exasperate the problem and bloat the Chinese credit card....
Ramen, just remember my favourite lemming, the only poll that counts is the one taken in 2012.
gcbel
Another squirrel story for the Obama-obsessed to "shake their lil fists". Obama's still president. PPACA's still the law of the land. :-)
RomeoRII
Denial is the only comfort left to the dwindling corps of Obama supporters. It allows their view to make sense to them even when faced with the facts about their hero`s almost daily "evolving" of the truth.
RR
gcbel
"Evolving" truth? Is that the inane meme of the day? Too funny.
White House corrects earlier claim it had later found to be incorrect. Wow... Yep, You got him. Watergate right there. LOL!
Ah the obsessed... Manufactured villainy after manufactured villainy and he's still president and you're still the folks that supported the actual worst president in modern history. Sad really. I feel your pain. Really, I do.
gelendestrasse
Funny how all (two so far?) of Obama's illegal immigrant family members have gotten a free pass while other people with no relatives with clout are being deported. Guess it really is "who you know".
Jean ValJean
Funny how it's the avowed socialists who support Obama, but the freedom-lovers who oppose.
gcbel
**Roll eyes .. "avowed socialists"...
Lovers of freedom from common sense, integrity, accountability and any ability to engage in rational discourse. That's the only possible take from the "Freedom-lover" reaction to this article.
Real funny.
Jean ValJean
" Lovers of freedom from common sense, integrity, accountability and any ability to engage in rational discourse."
ROFLMAO! Socialist drivel!