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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Federal Immigration Appeal Panel Rejects Demjanjuk Appeal CLEVELAND - A man accused of being a Nazi death camp guard lost an appeal Thursday fighting his deportation. John Demjanjuk, 86, of suburban Cleveland, was ordered deported in 2005 after the chief federal immigration judge determined he had served at several Nazi death camps during World War II. Demjanjuk has denied the allegation and still has the right to appeal in federal courts Thursday's ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals in Falls Church, Va. Specifics of the ruling were not immediately available. The board reviewed legal briefs in the case before dismissing Demjanjuk's appeal, said Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review. "We are studying it," said John Broadley, Demjanjuk's lawyer. "But that's the conclusion they reached. What their reasoning is, we'll have to take a look at, and federal courts will have to look at it, too." Demjanjuk, a former auto worker, was cleared in 1993 in Israel of being the notorious "Ivan the Terrible," a sadistic guard at the Treblinka concentration camp. But Demjanjuk, who first lost his U.S. citizenship in 1981, was stripped of his citizenship in 2002 for a second time when a federal district judge in Cleveland ruled that documents from World War II prove he was a Nazi guard at various Nazi death or forced labor camps. Demjanjuk is in frail health due to leg and back pain and appeared in a wheelchair at his deportation hearing last year. He lives in virtual seclusion at his home in Seven Hills. "My expectation is that our lawyer is going to want to review it," said Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr. "My understanding it that it's appealable. They can't send him anywhere. We're not aware of any country offering to accept him from the United States." Former Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ruled Dec. 28 last year that there was no evidence to document Demjanjuk's claim that he would be tortured if deported to his native Ukraine. Creppy ruled that Demjanjuk should be deported to Germany or Poland if Ukraine does not accept him. Broadley argued in the appeal that Creppy was unsuitable to rule on the case and that Demjanjuk was not given a fair chance to adequately oppose some of the findings against him. The 11-member Board of Immigration Appeals is the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws. Generally, the board does not conduct courtroom proceedings. The board hears appeals from decisions of immigration judges and by district directors of the Department of Homeland Security. Decisions of the board are binding unless modified or overruled by the attorney general or a federal appeals court. Demjanjuk's case started 29 years ago and is the second longest in the records of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which handles cases against people accused of being former Nazis. The longest running U.S. case involving an accused Nazi was that of Andrija Artukovic, a Croatia wartime government official. The former Immigration and Naturalization Service started deportation proceedings against him in May 1951, and he was extradited to Yugoslavia in early 1986, some 35 years later.
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