Speech #970143526

Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to stress to my colleagues the importance of our continuing to take a leadership role in insuring that our Government brings to justice Nazi war criminals who have sought refuge in the United States. The Congress is responsible for enacting legislation to deport Nazi war criminals from the United States and to prevent their entry into this country as immigrants. It was due to congressional efforts that the special unit within the Department of Justice. the Office of Special Investigations. was established. We have come a long way since 1974. when former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman launched an investigation to uncover our Governments failure to investigate widespread allegations that Nazi war criminals were living in the United States. Public attention was brought to the fact that our country is still a haven for some Nazi war criminals who fraudulently entered the United States after the Second World War. Many came from the countries of Eastern Europe. lied about their war activities to immigration officials. and eventually obtained U.S. citizenship. For nearly 30 years. there had been no interest on the part of Justice Department officials to investigate and prosecute the alleged war criminals who had been recognized by their victims to be some of Hitlers infamous henchmen. It is an unfortunate part of postWorld War II history that not one single denaturalization case was brought by our Government against a Nazi war criminal living in the United States. As a result of the efforts of Liz Holtzman and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration. and the strong support of a number of committed colleagues whose bipartisan support has since grown in the House and Senate. a special unitthe Office of Special Investigationswas established in the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. Its sole job is to investigate and prosecute alleged Nazi war criminals. It has a staff of 50. including lawyers. investigators. historians. and paralegals. and a modest annual budget. Twentysix cases are currently in the courts. and another 221 are under investigation. I will include a synopsis of the cases now in litigation. prepared by the OSI. at the conclusion of this statement. During the years when the Immigration and Naturalization Service had responsibility for bringing former Nazi war criminals to trial. the INS was negligent in failing to investigate charges of alleged Nazi war criminals in the United States. Despite credible allegations. for 25 years the INS made no serious effort to pursue the investigation of these charges. It failed to interview available witnesses. many of whom are no longer living. refused to pursue leads brought to its attention. and made no effort to upgrade or centralize the investigation to enable prompt prosecution in a professional manner. The Immigration Services failure to investigate in the United States was matched by its refusal to locate evidence in foreign countries. INS did not check the main war crimes documents center in Berlin. it did not even contact the State of Israel. It refused to seek evidence from the Eastern European countries where most of the war crimes had been committed.