Date: 2014-12-02
Speaker: CAROLYN B. MALONEY (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: New York

Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding. and I thank my friend and colleague on the other side of the aisle. LEONARD LANCE. for coming to New York. for working in meetings. and for advancing this issue before the Social Security Administration and also the Justice Department. Mr. Speaker. for decades. former Nazis complicit in war crimes have been given monthly Social Security benefit checks due to a loophole in the law. It is an outrage that began at the end of World War II. when thousands of Nazis fled to the United States. Many lied about their past. so that they could become American citizens. take jobs. and try to just blend in. but most were eventually identified and deported. and some were tried for their crimes. however. dozens were never formally deported. If a former Nazi left the U.S. on his own before a final order of removal was issued. the law allowed him to keep receiving his Social Security benefits. As the author of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998. which opened up all of the files of the CIA on the Nazis and what they were doing in the United States and in Europe. I have been working on this issue for decades. In 1991. I cowrote a bill to close this loophole by creating a new legal process to terminate benefits. Earlier this year. I wrote the Social Security Administration. seeking more information on former Nazis who continue to receive Social Security benefits. They will be issuing a report to me and others on exactly how much money is involved. After an investigative report by the Associated Press revealed new details of Nazis receiving Social Security benefits. I wrote to the IG of the Justice Department and have had meetings with them and the Social Security Administration to investigate exactly how this all occurred. I also worked with my colleagues. Republican Congressmen LEONARD LANCE of New Jersey and JASON CHAFFETZ of Utah. to craft the Nazi Benefits Termination Act of 2014. It was supported by editorials across this Nation. We received a total of 19 editorials in support of our bill. In the interest of time. I will just put in the RECORD roughly five of them because I think it is important that across this Nation. from the South. the West. the East. the North. all of them have come out strongly in support of not spending one taxpayer dime to support Nazis. The Ways and Means Committee took on this same effort. Our bills are similar. and either would be sufficient to address the problem. Both would affirmatively declare individuals who have been denaturalized or renounced citizenship on the grounds of participation in Nazi persecution ineligible for Social Security benefits. I urge my colleagues to end this outrage. close this loophole. and send a message that when we say we will never forget. we mean we will never forget and that we will stop this terrible abuse of taxpayer money going to Social Security benefits for Nazis. I commend all of my colleagues who have worked on this important issue. [From mydailynews.com] No SSNs FOR THE SS A search for some small measure of justice will go on as long as Nazi war criminals remain alive and unpunished. Never mind that almost seven decades have passed since they participated in the Holocaust. Never mind that they are well up in years. perhaps approaching 100. The outrage is that some of the guilty are living out their last days with the help of Social Security payments sent out by Uncle Sam. After World War II. former SS death camp guards and others made their way to America in the hope of leaving their crimes behind. Rather than fight to boot the group. the government made odious deals: If they left the country. they would keep their Social Security benefits. As reported by the Associated Press. troops who worked in the camps. a rocket scientist accused of using slave labor to do his research. a Polish Nazi collaborator who facilitated the murder of thousands of Jews and others fled and kept their cash. At least four are still alive and collecting. Rep. Carolyn Maloney said she will draft legislation to strip benefits from Nazis. Better late than never. [From the Dallas Morning News. Oct. 22. 2014]