President Obama’s uncle has a new deportation hearing, giving the famous kin a second chance to remain in the US.
A board of appeals ordered agency that operates the US immigration court system to review the case of Onyango Obama, the president’s uncle. Obama had his uncle face deportation after failing to renew an application to remain in the country.
Onyanho Obama, the half brother of the president’s late father, had sought to reverse the deportation order, The Associated Press reported .
An attorney for the Obama uncle said the deportation was the result of a technical error. The 68-year-old Obama came to the US as a teenager in the early 1960s to live with a host family and attend school, The Associated Press noted.
Obama’s uncle is not the only famous kin to seek to avoid deportation. Obama’s uncle, Zeituni Onyango, won the right to stay in the United States in 2010 after facing an initial deportation order.
Obama had his uncle face deportation after being arrested in Boston suburb last year for drunken driving. Obama reportedly failed to stop at a stop sign, causing a police cruiser to crash into his car. When he was taken to jail and asked if he wanted to make a phone call to arrange bail, Obama’s uncle said, “I think I will call the White House.”
Obama’s uncle said he feared deportation if Mitt Romney won the election in November, and for good reason. When asked in 2011 if he would send the Obama uncle to deportation, Romney told ABC News that he would.