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 held 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 was one of many Nazi collaborators living quietly in the United States after World War II; at the public's urging, the government started investigating in the early '70s, but they were slow and ineffective, and when they filed suit to denaturalize Fedorenko, they did not properly prepare for trial. The District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled for Fedorenko, but the government – by then under better management – won at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ordered Fedorenko's citizenship to be revoked. Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing for a 7–2 Supreme Court majority, upheld the appeals court's judgment, but did not endorse all of its reasoning.

The government argued that Fedorenko's citizenship should be revoked because it was gained "by concealment of a material fact"; the immigration law that Fedorenko used to enter the U.S. did not allow people who "assisted the enemy in persecuting civil populations", so if Fedorenko had not lied about his past as a guard, he could have been denied entry. Fedorenko offered three defenses, based on duress, materiality, and equity. First, Fedorenko argued that the immigration law did not exclude him because he only served as a guard under duress; the district court accepted this argument, but the Supreme Court held that the law had no exception for duress. Second, Fedorenko argued that because he was forced to be a guard, his lie was immaterial under the court's ruling in Chaunt v. United States (1960); he would have been let in either way. The government argued that Chaunt should be interpreted differently – an issue lower courts had disagreed on in the past – but the Supreme Court avoided answering the Chaunt question, holding that because Fedorenko helped persecute civilians, he was ineligible, so his lie was material. Third, the district court held that under the rules of equity, it had the power to rule for Fedorenko anyway because of his record of a quiet life in the U.S.; the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that if citizenship is gained illegally, the court has no power to stop denaturalization.

The Supreme Court's holding in this case helped the government in its other cases against suspected Nazi collaborators. However, the court was criticized for sidestepping the ambiguity of Chaunt rather than clarifying it. Scholars split on the issue of duress; some pointed to the district court's holding that if duress was not an exception, the act would bar Jewish kapos from entry, while others agreed with the Supreme Court in finding that argument unconvincing. Justice Harry Blackmun concurred with the decision, but argued that the court should have applied Chaunt to the case. Two justices dissented; Justice John Paul Stevens argued against the court's interpretation of duress, while Justice 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; there, he pled guilty to war crimes in 1986 and was executed in 1987.