Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged to deport former Nazi guard living in New York City
Published May 17, 2017
(JTA) — A New York congressman has asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to deport a former Nazi guard living in New York City.
Rep. Joseph Crowley, a Democrat, sent Tillerson a letter on Tuesday urging him to deport Jakiw Palij, 92, of Queens, who was a guard at the Trawniki concentration camp in occupied Poland.
“The United States has long acknowledged that Nazi crimes were beyond heinous, and I urge you to act quickly on this matter,” Crowley wrote, according to the New York Daily News. “If action isn’t taken, it could mean that this individual may never face any form of justice.”
Palij, who has lived in the United States as a war refugee since 1949, has claimed that he was forced into working as a guard and never actually killed anyone. His U.S. citizenship was revoked 13 years ago, but Poland, Germany and Ukraine all declined to take him.
Local Jewish students staged a protest outside of Palij’s home in the Jackson Heights neighborhood on Holocaust Remembrance Day in late April.
Crowley had sent similar letters to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly three weeks ago, the Daily News reported.
