Obama's Aunt To Learn Asylum Fate

Zeituni Onyango

A federal immigration judge will decide Thursday whether President Obama's aunt, who has been in the United States illegally for years, will be allowed to stay.

Zeituni Onyango, 57, applied for political asylum in 2002, citing violence in her native Kenya. She is the half-sister of the president's late father.

Onyango was a legal resident of the United States at the time and had received a Social Security card a year earlier.

But her asylum request was turned down in 2004. She appealed and was ordered to leave, but has lived in the United States illegally since then.

Judge Leonard Shapiro opened a hearing on Onyango's asylum request Thursday morning in Boston, Massachusetts.

Her immigration status came to light in the final days of the 2008 presidential race.

Obama has not weighed in on the case, with the White House saying "the president believes that the case should run its ordinary course." CNN