Homeland Security may have booted Obama's aunt

The Department of Homeland Security may have "outed" Barack Obama's aunt as an illegal alien, according to a report Sunday.Zeituni Onyango, 56, the half-sister of Obama's late father, resides in Boston and was ordered to leave the United States by an asylum immigration judge in 2004.

Her immigration status was revealed Friday by the Associated Press, which cited two unnamed sources, one of them a "federal law enforcement official."

The Washington Post, however, revealed Sunday that the Department of Homeland Security has launched an internal investigation to see whether it violated its own privacy practices. "Federal privacy law restricts U.S. immigration agencies from disclosing information about citizens and permanent residents, and DHS policy similarly limits disclosures about the status of legal and illegal immigrants," the Washington Post wrote. "Asylum-seekers are granted greater protection, because of the sensitive nature of their claims and the risks of retaliation."

Added the New York Times: "Some Democrats suggested that the timing of the disclosure could have been politically motivated, and some immigration lawyers said that for government officials to disclose information about an asylum applicant was unethical or perhaps illegal."

Read on.