Let’s say your nephew is president of the most powerful country on earth and you have to appear before an immigration court because you stay in beforementioned country illegally. How would you feel? Don’t know, well, perhaps Barack Obama’s aunt can tell you:

President Barack Obama’s Kenyan aunt appealed her deportation order at a US immigration court hearing Wednesday.Zeituni Onyango did not speak to reporters as she left the court in Boston through a back door after the brief hearing, which was closed to the public.

She was escorted by Federal Protective Service officers.

The next hearing date is currently set for February 4, 2010, said Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the executive office of immigration review at the Department of Justice.

Onyango was ordered to be deported from the United States in 2004 but kept living in Boston. In December 2008, following Obama’s election victory, a court allowed her to have the case reopened.

Virtually no one believed Obama when he said he didn’t know his auntie was living illegally in the States, but the rather obvious can’t be proved, so he got away with throwing “aunt Zeituni” under the bus.

Although the story is quite sad, also because Onyango is an old lady with friends and relatives living near her, the law is clear. She has to be deported. That’s terrible for her and her nephew, but you can’t make exceptions just because the latter is the president. In fact, Obama will probably stay away from this case for exactly that reason: he knows he’ll be severely criticized if he does everything in his power to help his aunt.