President Obama’s Uncle Arrested And Held As An Illegal Immigrant

President Barack Obama (D)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

An uncle of President Obama was arrested in Framingham, MA last week for drunk driving, and detained as an illegal immigrant, according to CNN.

Onyango Obama, the half-brother of the President’s father, was arrested for driving under the influence, failure to yield and operating a motor vehicle to endanger, after failing “several” sobriety tests on August 24, according to local law enforcement officials.

According to the AP, when officers asked Obama if he wanted to make a phone call, he replied: “I think I will call the White House.”

He was held without bail at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. From CNN:

According to a a federal law enforcement source who spoke on condition of not being identified, Onyango Obama was not legally in the United States and has been previously ordered removed from the country. His case is now going through the immigration process, the source said.

According to the Times of London, the President referenced Onyango Obama in his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, describing him as “the uncle who had left for America 25 years ago and had never come back”.

Get the day’s best political analysis, news and reporting from the TPM team delivered to your inbox every day with DayBreaker. Sign up here, it takes just a few seconds.

Latest DC
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: