Obama’s aunt ‘allowed to stay in US’

President Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, has been allowed to stay in the United States for the duration of her court battle against deportation.

An immigration judge on Thursday heard two hours of testimony from Ms Onyango, 57, and gave lawyers until mid-March to file written arguments.

Ms Onyango entered court in a wheelchair with a cane across her lap. She smiled, but did not speak to reporters.

Doctors also spoke on behalf of Ms Onyango, who has said she suffers from Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune disorder affecting the nervous system).

President Obama has not intervened for his aunt, who was found living in a housing project in Boston in 2008.

The White House said Mr Obama has had no involvement in his aunt’s case and believes it should run its ordinary course.

She went to the US in 2000 and was ordered out in 2004 after an asylum request was rejected, but she did not leave.

“She really wants to stay in America,” said her lawyer, Margaret Wong, according to the New York Daily News.

Ms Onyango is a half-sister to Obama’s father, whom Obama called “Auntie Zeituni” in his memoir Dreams from My Father. She applied for asylum in 2002, citing violence in Kenya.

In an interview in November, she told the Associated Press of her anguish at the possibility of some people using her immigration status to attack the American first family.

Ms Onyango sobbed as she described her anguish over no longer having contact with Mr Obama after the revelation she had been living illegally in the US.