Elderly Ukrainian immigrant faces deportation over second set of war crime claims

From March 24, 2008

The U.S. government again moves to deport suspected World War II Nazi prison guard, John Demjanjuk.

If proven true, the allegations should lead to the harshest punishment allowed by law. However, the case illustrates the innumerable do overs that immigration authorities get even after a person becomes a naturalized citizen. Why cannot the same standards of fairness that apply to other areas of the law be applied to immigration? The accused man’s citizenship was first stripped from him in 1981. The allegations against him the first time did lead to a conviction in an Israeli court which was overturned when evidence surfaced that another person was a concentration camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.” The man’s citizenship was restored in 1998.

On May 1, 2004, a three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Demjanjuk could be again stripped of his US citizenship because the Justice Department had presented “clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence” of Demjanjuk’s service in Nazi death camps.

And, now, he is to be deported back to Germany. What is going to happen if what happened last time happens again? What if the German courts find him not guilty of being the guy he is supposed to be this go around? Does Demjanjuk get his citizenship back yet again and does immigration get another shot at stripping him of his citizenship?