Obama: ICE, ICE, baby
Posted: Sunday, November 02, 2008 9:42 AM by Domenico Montanaro
“Responding to a report that a Kenyan relative of Senator Barack Obama was living in the United States illegally, his campaign said Saturday that he had no knowledge of her immigration status and that ‘any and all appropriate laws’ should be followed,” the New York Times reports. More: “Some Democrats suggested that the timing of the disclosure could have been politically motivated, and some immigration lawyers said that for government officials to disclose information about an asylum applicant was unethical or perhaps illegal.”
Per NBC’s Mike Kosnar, a senior Immigration and Customs official confirmed that the leak of the news that Obama’s aunt was living illegally in the United States has been referred to the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General and the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility (ICE internal affairs) for possible action. The official said, "They are looking into whether there was a violation of policy in publicly disclosing individual case information."
Now that doesn't necessarily mean that the information for the AP story breaking the news came from ICE agents or personnel, Kosnar adds. But this is the agency that would be handling the case and have the most information about Obama's aunt, along with the immigration court, so ICE is the logical place to start.
It is likely Obama’s aunt was on a list of fugitive aliens, just like thousands of other illegal immigrants. But, obviously, people live for years in the US after receiving deportation orders. Fugitive apprehension teams usually target suspects with criminal records before they go after simple immigration violators.
Hillary Clinton pens an op-ed in the New York Daily News, laying out why she supports Obama. "We cannot afford four more years of the same broken ideological policies. Barack Obama must be our President. Joe Biden must be our vice president. And Democrats must once again clean up an economic mess the Republicans left behind. We've done it before, and we'll do it again."
