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Click for more articlesCOURT ORDERS AMERICAN BORN NAZI DEPORTED

The US has a long history of deporting Nazis, most of who were born in Europe and immigrated to the US after World War Two.  Recently, however, a federal appeals court ordered someone deported for Nazi activities who was born a US citizen. 

Nikolaus Schiffer was born in Philadelphia in 1919.  Only one year later he moved to Romania, where he grew up and took up residence.  In 1941, he joined the Romanian army, and two years later joined the Waffen-SS, one of the most brutal battalions in the Nazi forces.  While a member of the SS, he served as a guard at three concentration camps, including Dachau.  He was also a participant in two death marches, which were Nazi efforts at the end of the war to hide their concentration camp activities by evacuating the prisoners and forcing them to march miles across Germany.  Shortly after the war he was arrested on war crimes charges.

After the war, Schiffer tried to return to the US.  In 1948, he admitted that he served in the SS and the Romanian army, and that he had sworn an oath of loyalty to Romania and Adolf Hitler.  Over the following years he changed his story, gradually omitting any mention of his service as a concentration camp guard, his service in the Romanian army, or his post-war arrest for war crimes.  Eventually, he won admission to the US as a naturalized citizen in 1958. 

Schiffer lived without incident in the US for 30 years, until 1991, when the Justice Department filed suit to strip him of his citizenship.  In 1993, a federal district court judge found Schiffer did engage in Nazi persecution, and ordered his citizenship revoked.  Specifically, the judge found that by serving in the SS and Romanian army and by his oaths of loyalty he lost his native born citizenship.  The judge also found that he had obtained his naturalized citizenship by fraud.

In 1997, the INS moved to deport Schiffer.  An Immigration Judge found he was deportable because of his participation in Nazi activities.  Schiffer appealed this decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which affirmed, and then to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.  The Third Circuit affirmed.  Schiffer can request a rehearing by the entire Third Circuit, or can appeal to the Supreme Court, but barring relief from either of those avenues, he will be deported to Romania.

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