Judge Rules Obama’s Uncle Can Stay in U.S.

Onyango Obama overstayed a student visa issued in 1963

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Steven Senne / AP

Onyango Obama, President Barack Obama's Kenyan-born uncle, left, arrives at U.S. Immigration Court with attorney Margaret Wong, right, for a deportation hearing Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013 in Boston.

The uncle of President Barack Obama will be allowed to stay in the United States despite having overstayed a student visa for decades, a Boston immigration judge ruled Tuesday.

Onyango “Omar” Obama came to the U.S. from Kenya with his brother, Barack Obama’s father, on a student visa in 1963. That visa expired in 1970, but the judge ruled that Onyango Obama was an upstanding member of his community and met the legal requirements for permanent residency under a federal law that allows residency for people living in the U.S. since before 1972. According to documents obtained by the Boston Globe, Onyango Obama was ordered deported in 1986 and 1989 and lost an appeal in 1992. The question of deportation rose again after he was arrested for drunken driving in Framingham, near Boston, in 2011.

In his testimony, Onyango said Barack lived with him for three weeks while studying at Harvard Law School, contradicting the president’s claim that the two had never met.

[The Boston Globe]