The Justice Department asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service Monday to place the names of 9,800 suspected former concentration camp guards on its “watch list.”
Those individuals, whom the department determined assisted or otherwise participated in Nazi-sponsored persecution, would be barred from entering the United States under the Holtzman Amendment.
The names were compiled from captured war records, post-World War II wanted and detention lists and extradition requests.
Neal Sher, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which searches for and prosecutes Nazi war criminals living in the United States, said he expects the list to be broadened once additional archival documents are searched.
While OSI has previously supplied the INS and State Department with the names of thousands of suspected war criminals, the listing of 9,800 former concentration camp guards was compiled with the aid of a new sophisticated computer database.
Sher said in an interview that from now on, OSI’s listings of suspected war criminals will be “more systematic” than ever before.
He added that preventing alleged Nazi persecutors from entering the United States is an important aspect of OSI’s mandate, along with the denaturalization or deportation of those illegally residing here.
OSI currently is investigating 700 suspected war criminals, has brought to trial about 70 and has lost just one verdict.
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