CINCINNATI – A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected an alleged Nazi death camp guard's challenge to a final deportation order by the nation's chief immigration judge.
A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, after considering oral arguments in November, ruled there was no basis to John Demjanjuk's challenge of a December 2005 ruling that he could be deported to his native Ukraine or to Germany or Poland.
His attorney, John Broadley, had argued that the chief immigration judge is purely an administrative official and not entitled to act as an immigration judge.
The appeals court refused to review the ruling.
Demjanjuk, 87, lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. He has steadfastly denied that he ever helped the Nazis, arguing that he served in the Soviet Army and was captured by Germany in 1942 and became a prisoner of war.
The Justice Department first brought charges in 1977, seeking to revoke his citizenship and deport him for falsifying information on applications when entering the U.S. in 1952 and when becoming a citizen in 1958.
Demjanjuk's citizenship was revoked in 1981, restored in 1998 and revoked again in 2002.
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