Obama's uncle called an immigration fugitive

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Aug. 31 (UPI) -- An uncle of U.S. President Barack Obama was being held on an immigration detainer after being arrested on drunken driving and other charges, officials say.

The Boston Globe, citing federal law enforcement sources, reported Wednesday has been a fugitive from deportation since 1992.

Onyango Obama was arrested last week in Framingham, Mass.

The sources said Obama, the younger half-brother of the president's father, Barack Obama Sr., had been told to leave the country in 1992 but did not do so.

Police said he drove a car in front of police cruiser, which nearly hit his car, and he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.14 percent, above the Massachusetts limit of 0.08 percent.

The Globe said he was being held on an immigration detainer in the Plymouth County House of Correction.

When police asked if he wanted to make a call, he replied, "I think I'd like to call the White House," a Framingham police report said.

Obama came to the United States in 1963 as part of an airlift that helped Kenyan students study in this country, according to a new book, "The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father," by Globe reporter Sally H. Jacobs.

He studied at a boys school in Cambridge but left the school after two years and enrolled in Newton public schools before dropping out, the book says.

The Globe said it's unclear what he did next but he resurfaced in 1994, when he was apparently working as a clerk at a Dorchester convenience store and two masked men beat him with a sawed-off shotgun and robbed him, Jacobs' book says.

His sister, Zeituni Onyango, had also faced deportation before being granted asylum by a Boston immigration judge last year.

A spokesman for Onyango Obama's attorney, Margaret Wong, who had also represented his sister, did not respond to telephone calls Tuesday, the Globe said.