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Leak On Obama's Aunt Violates Agency Regulations
The leaking of information about the immigration status of Barack Obama's aunt appears to directly violate regulations for confidentiality laid out in a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo obtained by TPMmuckraker.
As we reported earlier, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (which is the law enforcement arm of USCIS) has begun an internal probe into the leak to the Associated Press, which revealed early this morning that Obama's aunt "is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago."
The memo, written in 2005 by Joseph Langlois, director of the Asylum Division in the Office of Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations, reads in part:
The federal regulations at 8 CFR 208.6 generally prohibit the disclosure to third parties of information contained in or pertaining to asylum applications, credible fear determinations, and reasonable fear determinations--including information contained in RAPS or APSS1--except under certain limited circumstances. These regulations safeguard information that, if disclosed publicly, could subject the claimant to retaliatory measures by government authorities or non-state actors in the event that the claimant is repatriated, or endanger the security of the claimant's family members who may still be residing in the country of origin....
According to established guidance, confidentiality is breached when information contained in or pertaining to an asylum application (including information contained in RAPS or APSS) is disclosed to a third party in violation of the regulations, and the unauthorized disclosure is of a nature that allows the third party to link the identity of the applicant to: (1) the fact that the applicant has applied for asylum; (2) specific facts or allegations pertaining to the individual asylum claim contained in an asylum application; or (3) facts or allegations that are sufficient to give rise to a reasonable inference that the applicant has applied for asylum.
It's worth noting again that we don't know for certain the leak came from ICE, since people at other government agenicies could have had access to the information.
Still, from the available evidence, it appears ICE is the most likely source. And Dan Kowalski, a leading immigration law expert, told TPMmuckraker that there's "no question" the leak violated ICE's guidelines as laid out in the memo.
And he identified for TPMmuckraker some additional, pertinent questions, asking:
1. Did the leaker know it was a violation? 2. Was the leak politically motivated? 3. A solo action, or conspiracy of 2 or more? If the latter, who is the boss?
We'll be working to bring you answers...
Josh
Zachary
2. Was the leak politically motivated?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
November 1, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. Did the leaker know it was illegal?
Did Cheney and Libby know they were breaking the law to out a covert CIA agent?
Talk about refuges for scoundrels!
Try going to court for ANYTHING and telling the judge you didn't know that what you did was illegal.
November 2, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the leak is illegal, then AP would have no grounds for protecting the source correct?
November 1, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Talk to Judy formerly from the NYT, and soon to be Fox pundit!
November 2, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
DIRTY TRICKS! Must be getting desperate..?
This dirty trick finally made up my mind? This really is sickening? That some unknown entity would try to sabotage Obama's campaign, by fingering his aunt for an immigration violation. Did some sleazy group allied to the Republicans hire an investigator, to look for a skeleton in the closet?
I'm an Independent and will be definitely voting for Obama now. The fact that I am Pro-sovereignty and an anti-illegal advocate, shows you how furious with the otherside of the aisle. It just shows what the other side will stoop to any level to win. We don't need people like that, in power. Not that the Democrats have not reverted to dirty tricks. Some of my family are in dire need of health care. My step daughter who died with cancer, found insurance companies implying she had a pre-existing condition so that they could deny her coverage. She passed away this year.
I don't mind paying my share of taxes, but I draw the line in supporting every illegal alien who slips past the border patrol.
We don't need McCain's platform of a $5.000 dollar credit, when we can sweep to one side greedy health insurance companies. Outside of Obama's contribution for America's future.
I resent his insistence in giving 37 million illegal aliens, NOT 13 MILLION, according to the Tucson sector Border Patrol union local 2544 (with an additional half-million coming every year) a blanket amnesty.
A massive financial impact on our economy by importing the worlds poor. However, I respect Obama's foreign policy, his rebuilding our interior infrastructure, neglected by the Bush mob. No more outsourcing without financial consequences or selling America to some countries that hate us.
As to the illegal immigration conflagration? Once it comes up for a vote, they will have withstand the angry voice of millions of Americans. Enough is enough from the open border zealots. numbersusa FIND the truth!
November 1, 2008 9:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's worth remembering that in March 2008 government contractors were caught snooping on the candidate's passport files. This was at the State Dept, whereas this recent breach was at ICE which is part of Homeland Security. Still, it illustrates how easily something like this can happen after the Bush Administration has outsource so many government functions.
Obviously, the Obama campaign didn't know the aunt's status because they certainly would have taken action in advance. Yet, the campaign doesn't have access to the aunt's files and so there's no way to really check. Yet, if the aunt is living openly in the country for years one could assume things were in order with ICE.
The aunt's transgression is minor (not even criminal). Yet, it carries a lot of baggage that the McCain surrogates hope will cause damage, I.e., foreigners, illegal immigrants, etc. And it was timed such that the full details can't be known until after the election. Yet, on the scale of things it's has to be less damaging than the revelation that Palin's 17 year daughter is pregnant. That shocking revelation ultimately had little effect on Palin's standing, even among the family values crowd. And so it's difficult to see how a family issue much more distant, like Obama's half aunt, will have much effect.
November 2, 2008 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't this woman from a country where her tribe is being targeted for genocide?
Why was her application for asylum turned down??
November 2, 2008 3:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now that her privacy has been destroyed,
her asylum case broadcast to the world,
her dignity smeared,
her understated pride in a younger relative on the verge of becoming president turned into a weapon against him,
find out who leaked this information.
Do NOT let allow this woman to be another expendable female victim of the Republican party.
The staging of events in Boston causes me to wonder why her appeal for asylum was denied.
Obama's half-brother, locked in poverty and violence in Kenya, has been tracked down admits to denying being related to Barack Obama because he is ashamed of his living conditions.
Read a little bit about conditions and then ask why his aunt was NOT granted asylum:
"If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed," he said.
For ten years George Obama lived rough. However he now hopes to try to sort his life out by starting a course at a local technical college.
He has only met his famous older brother twice - once when he was just five and the last time in 2006 when Senator Obama was on a tour of East Africa and visited Nairobi.
The Illinois senator mentions his brother in his autobiography, describing him in just one passing paragraph as a "beautiful boy with a rounded head".
Of their second meeting, George Obama said: "It was very brief, we spoke for just a few minutes. It was like meeting a complete stranger."
George added he was no longer in contact with his mother and said:"I have had to learn to live and take what I need.
"Huruma is a tough place, last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. The police don't even arrest you they just shoot you.
"I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2590614/Barack-Obamas-lost-brother-found-in-Kenya.html
-----------------
Why?
Please look at how Obama's aunt spent some of her time while in Boston:
Zeituni Onyango, former computer systems coordinator, Boston
I joined Experience Corps because: I felt that I should help the children in my community. I love people and enjoy interacting with them. My friend had so many wonderful things to say about her work with Experience Corps. Also, I was idle, and this was a chance to get involved.
I know I'm making a difference when: I see the change in children I have worked with. All children are fine as long as they have a good foundation, but there is no foundation without literacy.
My favorite part of tutoring with Experience Corps is: Being able to help children succeed. As an older adult I feel I have much to give young people - as well as my peers. Experience Corps has given me that opportunity.
Working with students teaches me: Just how much I can impact the education of children in the school system. I learn different strategies and approaches to help children and also to improve myself. In addition, being an Experience Corps member has taught me that I can be a leader in my community.
http://www.experiencecorps.org/news/enewsletter/Voice-2007-04.cfm?version=print
November 2, 2008 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
So we're all in agreement then, that the Ohio public officials (and Obama donors) who abused their powers by prying into the personal life of Joe the Plumber should be prosecuted, right?
November 2, 2008 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
First of all it was the general media that investigated, and the information they got were from PUBLIC records. Not paying taxes is on the public records. Plumbing Licenses are in the public records, or do you think, like the loyal bushies that those things should be secret too?
In other words, there was no abuse of power in finding out information in the public domain about "Sam" the non-plumber, tax-scofflaw.
A person who applies for asylum is protected from retribution by our government (unless they are related to Barack Obama that is).
Does that answer your question?
November 2, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who cares about the source of information being leaked regarding criminal activity? As a taxpayer I'm outraged that I am paying the rent for an illegal with an outstanding deportation order. How can this happen? Maybe if your nephew is a U.S. Senator?
November 2, 2008 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
1. I think you should care about the source of the leak if they are also breaking the law...
2. Are you outraged at paying their salary?
3. It can happen like it happens for all the aliens in our Country; our Congress has failed to enact immigration reform...
4. I suggest that you contact your Congress Rep.s and ask them!
November 2, 2008 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
She is seeking asylum.
Her housing is funded by the state of Massachusetts.
Where are your values?
I am proud that my city is a refuge. Can't you see the poignancy of this situation?
November 2, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hope that the FBI investigates this and arrests those responsible ASAP; that is their job!
If they don't do it, then the Congress should find out why!
What else are these folks leaking and to whom? We already have had the Passport files of lots of famous folks "viewed"; has any of these "sources" lost their high paying jobs, because they are BREAKING THE LAW?
BTW: If someone leaked John McCain's military records of when he was a POW; there would be outraged Rep.'s screaming foul; but Obama's distant aunt that is somehow OK?
November 2, 2008 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Remember when Republicans were all in a lather over any Democratic comment about Bristol Palin's out-of-wedlock pregnancy?
The holy principle then was "Families are off limits".
And remember the uproar over the media digging into Joe the Plumber's record and background?
"Respect the privacy of private citizens" was the GOP hue and cry.
Now, in yet another display of partisan hypocrisy, the McCain campaign and friends are making clear that the unabridged version of any rule they live by always has the phrase "if they are Republicans" tacked on at the end.
So desperate. Pathetic. Egregious. Immoral. Illegal.
And hilariously and ridiculously ineffective.
November 2, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, the leak might be illegal according to ICE? Well, that isn’t what the focus should be. What about being in this country illegally for five years? Or, not going home after being denied entry by a judge? Or, how about enjoying government housing for five years? Or, getting welfare from the state (that stipend)? Or, getting medical care from the state (back procedure)? Or violating campaign laws by donating to Obama ? Or, etc., etc. I could go on, but Obama should know all that. Evidence of that? How about this: she was at his swearing in as a US Senator just four years ago when he swore to uphold the US Constitution. And he's been in contact with her since, according to his campaign spokesperson, as recently as last year. If she's here on a tourist visa and has been here for over ten years shouldn’t Obama figure she’s overstayed just a bit? Oh, and she said she was told not to talk to anyone until November 5. Who was it that told her that? Obama? And, the saddest thing is that this story first broke overseas. The Times of London had it last Wednesday. It was carried by foreign press for two days before the AP decided to carry it and then made it to most of the US press, reluctantly. With most the of the press going after the messenger (the leak). How sad is that.
November 2, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama appears not to feel any deep connection to his relatives on his Father's side -- letting his half-brother live in squalor and not keeping track of how his Aunt was doing. He did not know them growing up and has seen most of them only twice -- the first time when he was twenty.
It is possible that as a proud woman she did not tell him of her problems but it is also very possible that given that she knew he was a lawyer that at some point she asked him 'now what should I do"?
The leaking of this information by a federal official as detailed in the ABC report is indeed illegal but in some was resembles the leaking of the Pentagon Papers. The information leaked is important to the American public for the light that it throws on Obama's character. This is a man who wants us to believe that he cares about Americans, about the American poor but at the same time he cannot be bothered to keep track of his father's family. I wince when I think of the difference that a little help from Obama could have made in some of their lives.
When it was revealed that Obama gave less to charity than McCain, I kinda shrugged and said well I don't know everything -- maybe Obama is giving some significant support to his African relatives who could obviously use it -- so much for that theory.
November 2, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, fear not: for Victoria Toensing and Joseph DiGenova surely must be on the case!
Oh, wait - they only care about such issues when Republicans are 'victimized.' How pathetic.
November 3, 2008 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink