Fedorenko v. United States

Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490 (1981), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the citizenship status of Feodor Fedorenko, a naturalized citizen who had lied about his past as a guard at a Nazi death camp on his visa and citizenship applications. The Court decided that because Fedorenko lied on his visa application, his visa and citizenship were invalid. Fedorenko was a Ukrainian-born soldier who fought in World War II, was captured, and served as a guard at Treblinka extermination camp for over a year. He emigrated to the United States in 1949, lying on his visa application to cover up his time at Treblinka. He lived a quiet life in the U.S. for decades, but when the government became aware of his past, they initiated denaturalization proceedings against him in 1977, looking to revoke his citizenship. As a result of Fedorenko's eventual loss, he was deported to the Soviet Union and executed for treason and war crimes.

Fedorenko arose out of a growing public consciousness of Nazis living quietly within the United States; investigations into the matter began at public urging in the early '70s, but they were slow-going and ineffective. When the government did file suit, it proved wholly unprepared for trial, owing to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)'s unfamiliarity with the court system. The District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled for Fedorenko, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision. Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing for a 7–2 Supreme Court majority, upheld the appeals court's judgment on modified reasoning. Justice Harry Blackmun and Chief Justice Warren E. Burger concurred, while Justices Byron White and John Paul Stevens dissented.

Initially, the district court ruled for Fedorenko on the grounds that the government had failed to prove that Fedorenko's service was voluntary, rather than under duress; neither the appeals court nor the Supreme Court challenged this position, but the Supreme Court ruled that whether it was voluntary or not, serving as a guard at Treblinka would have led to him being denied a visa under the relevant law, and thus his visa was invalid. This holding allowed the Supreme Court to sidestep a question of materiality at issue in the lower courts; the district court interpreted the Supreme Court's decision in Chaunt v. United States (1960) as requiring the government to show that had Fedorenko would have conclusively been denied entry had the truth been known, while the appeals court interpreted the same case as requiring the government to show that Fedorenko only might have been denied entry under the same circumstances. The Supreme Court held that it was not necessary to resolve the Chaunt question to reach a verdict. The district court also ruled that even if Fedorenko was ineligible for citizenship, it could refuse to revoke his citizenship under the principle of equitable discretion – when a proceeding is held in equity, a court can rule based on a consideration of the facts and the fairest result, rather than a strict interpretation of the law. The appeals court and Supreme Court, however, disagreed, ruling that equitable discretion does not allow a court to overlook illegally procured citizenship.

The Supreme Court's ruling that Fedorenko was ineligible as a matter of law owing to being a Treblinka guard assisted government officials in future cases against suspected Nazi collaborators, but the Court earned criticism for its failure to clarify the materiality standard and for not allowing duress as a defense. Some commentators agreed with the district court's holding that if duress was not an exception, the act would bar Jewish kapos or even those forced to cut prisoners' hair from entry, while others agreed with the Supreme Court in finding that argument unconvincing. In concurrence, Harry Blackmun argued that the Court should applied Chaunt to the case; in dissent, John Paul Stevens argued against the Court's interpretation of duress in the DPA; and also in dissent, Byron White argued that the Court should have clarified Chaunt and remanded the case back to the appeals court to review the district court's findings. After Fedorenko's loss at the Supreme Court, he was deported to the Soviet Union in 1984, pled guilty to war crimes in 1986, and was executed in 1987.