Opinion ID: 458682
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Requirements of Subsection (a)(19)

Text: 64 Section 241(a)(19), quoted in full in Part I above, provides that an alien is deportable if he or she, under the direction of, or in association with the Nazis ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion. Maikovskis argues that under this provision the government must prove that his own intention was to persecute the Audrini villagers on account of their political opinion. We disagree. 65 To begin with, the syntax of subsection (a)(19) suggests that the alien's personal motivation is not paramount. The structure of the subsection indicates rather that the Nazis' course of persecution must be shown to have been motivated by one of the listed factors. If, on the other hand, Congress had intended the interpretation of the subsection advanced by Maikovskis, it could simply have relocated the because of phrase to the beginning of subsection (a)(19), where it would have referred to the phrase alien ... who earlier in subsection (a). Thus, Congress could have provided for the deportability of an alien who, because of the victims' political opinion [etc], assisted in persecution by the Nazis. This is not, however, the way the statute was framed. As we read the actual language of subsection (a)(19), it does not require proof that the alien identified himself with the Nazis' basis for persecution; if the Nazi persecution occurred because of political opinion, the alien who assisted or otherwise participated in it is subject to deportation under subsection (a)(19). Cf. Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. at 512, 101 S.Ct. at 750 (declining to read Sec. 2(a) of the DP Act, which makes ineligible for visas individuals who assisted the enemy in persecuting civilians, as making ineligible only those who voluntarily assisted in such persecution). 66 This reading of the language of subsection (a)(19) finds support in the legislative history of the subsection. The 1978 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which included the enactment of Sec. 241(a)(19), were designed, inter alia, to establish within the permanent United States immigration laws provision for the exclusion of aliens who have participated in persecution. Such provisions had appeared previously in special refugee measures such as the DP Act. See H.R.Rep. No. 1452, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 3, reprinted in 1978 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 4700, 4702 [hereinafter cited as House Report]. As to the precise focus of Sec. 241(a)(19), the report of the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary stated as follows: 67 In making a persecution determination, emphasis should be placed on the governmental nature of the conduct involved. Isolated instances of mistreatment on the part of one individual against another, without Government support or complicity, would clearly not meet that criterion. 68 House Report, reprinted in 1978 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 4700, 4706. 69 In sum, the language, the purpose, and the legislative history of subsection (a)(19) support the conclusion that the government need not prove that the alien's assistance to the Nazis in the course of their persecution because of the victims' political opinion was motivated by the same political animus on the part of the alien. 70 We do not mean to suggest by this ruling either that an alien's inactive membership in an organization bent on politically-based persecution or that his tangential provision of services to such an organization would suffice to show that the alien assisted or otherwise participated in such persecution within the meaning of subsection (a)(19). As the Court noted in Fedorenko, 71 an individual who did no more than cut the hair of female inmates before they were executed cannot be found to have assisted in the persecution of civilians. On the other hand, there can be no question that a guard who was issued a uniform and armed with a rifle and a pistol, who was paid a stipend and was regularly allowed to leave the concentration camp to visit a nearby village, and who admitted to shooting at escaping inmates on orders from the commandant of the camp, fits within the statutory language about persons who assisted in the persecution of civilians. Other cases may present more difficult line-drawing problems but we need decide only this case. 72 449 U.S. at 512-13 n. 34, 101 S.Ct. at 750 n. 34. As with the case of the concentration camp guard in Fedorenko, there is little difficulty in determining that a police chief who, on orders from the Nazis, ordered his men to arrest all of the inhabitants of a village and burn the village to the ground has assisted in persecution.