Obama's Aunt Resurfaces in Boston Public Housing

President Obama's Kenyan aunt has returned to public housing in South Boston as she awaits a deportation hearing early next year, the Boston Herald reported Friday.

Zeituni Polly Onyango, the half-sister of Obama's father, been staying with relatives in Cleveland but moved back to Boston late last year. She moved into her current complex this month.

"Beggars can't be choosers," Onyango, 57, told the newspaper Thursday.

She wore a sleeveless dress she said her nephew bought her years before his rise to the most powerful office in the land.

"I'd like to live in a castle and have a limousine but I don't," she said. "My wealth is my health."

Onyango's deportation hearing is scheduled for Feb. 4, 2010. She lost her bid for asylum more than four years ago, and a judge ordered her deported. But she defied that order and has been living in public housing for years.

Onyango's request is being reconsidered under a little-used provision in U.S. immigration rules that allows denied asylum claims to be reheard if applicants can show that something has changed to make them eligible.

Obama has said repeatedly that he didn't know his aunt was living in the U.S. illegally and believes that laws covering the situation should be followed.

Click here to read the Boston Herald story.