Obama's Dad Told Feds Baby Would Be Adopted Out

His father told immigrations officials he'd be given up at birth
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 7, 2011 11:34 AM CDT
Barack Obama Adopted: Father Told Immigration Officials They Planned to Put Baby Up for Adoption
Barack Obama's father and mother are seen in this file photo.   (AP Photo/Obama for America)

Barack Obama’s father once told immigration officials that he and Ann Dunham were planning to give their then-unborn child up for adoption, writes Sally Jacobs for the Boston Globe. The elder Obama had been under scrutiny from federal immigration officials, who feared that he had another wife in Kenya. In writing a biography of the elder Obama, Jacobs recently obtained a memo from 1961 that reads: “Although they were married they do not live together and Miss Dunham is making arrangements with the Salvation Army to give the baby away."

Obama was in the middle of applying for an extension of his foreign student visa, notes Jacobs, and likely thought that being married to a white woman with a biracial child on the way wouldn't help his cause. The memo advised officials to keep an eye on Obama and his “playboy ways.” But Dunham’s family says they never heard her speak of adoption, and the White House has said Obama had never been told his mother considered such a thing. (More Barack Obama Sr. stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X