Fedorenko v. United States

Fedorenko (defendant) was a soldier in the Russian army during World War II who was captured by German forces. After being initially placed in prisoner-of-war camps, Fedorenko was eventually trained and assigned to be a paid, armed guard at Treblinka, an infamous concentration camp in Poland where hundreds of thousands of Jewish civilians were killed. After Treblinka was closed by the Nazis, Fedorenko was transferred to work as a guard at other facilities. When Allied forces closed in on Germany, Fedorenko managed to leave his post and pass as a civilian. In 1949, Fedorenko applied for admission to the United States (plaintiff) under a program that allowed European displaced persons to immigrate to the United States. The program specifically excluded any individuals who had assisted the enemy in persecuting civilians. Fedorenko lied about his wartime activities on his visa application, claiming that he had been a farmer in Poland who had been deported to Germany and forced to work in a factory. He was granted a visa, immigrated to the United States, worked in a factory for years, and eventually applied for naturalized citizenship in 1969. Fedorenko again concealed his wartime activities during the citizenship-application process and was granted citizenship in 1970. In 1977, the United States became aware that Fedorenko had been an armed guard at Treblinka and that he had willfully concealed this fact during his initial application for a displaced-persons visa and during the naturalization process. The United States brought a denaturalization action to strip Fedorenko of his citizenship, alleging that he had obtained his citizenship illegally. The district court held for Fedorenko, but the court of appeals reversed the decision and entered a judgment of denaturalization. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.