U.S. Supreme Court Fedorenko v. United States, 449
U.S. 490 (1981) Fedorenko v. United
States No. 79-5602 Argued October 15,
1980 Decided January 21,
1981 449
U.S. 490 CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH
CIRCUIT Syllabus The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (DPA) enabled European
refugees driven from their homelands by World War II to emigrate to
the United States without regard to traditional immigration quotas.
It provided that any person

															"who shall willfully make a misrepresentation for the purpose of
gaining admission into the United States as an eligible displaced
person shall thereafter not be admissible into the United
States,"

															and the applicable definition of "displaced persons"
specifically excluded individuals who had "assisted the enemy in
persecuting civil[ians]" or had "voluntarily assisted the enemy
forces" in their operations. Petitioner was admitted to the United
States under a DPA visa that had been issued on the basis of his
1949 application, which misrepresented his wartime activities and
concealed the fact that, after being captured by the Germans while
serving in the Russian Army, he had served as an armed guard at the
Nazi concentration camp at Treblinka in Poland. Subsequently, he
became an American citizen in 1970 on the basis of his visa papers
and his naturalization application, which also did not disclose his
wartime service as a concentration camp guard. The Government
thereafter brought this denaturalization action under § 340(a) of
the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which requires
revocation of United States citizenship that was "illegally
procured" or "procured by concealment of a material fact or by
willful misrepresentation." The Government charged that petitioner,
in applying for his DPA visa and for citizenship, had willfully
concealed that he had served as an armed guard at Treblinka and had
committed crimes against inmates of the camp because they were
Jewish, and that therefore he had procured his naturalization
illegally or by willfully misrepresenting material facts. The
Government presented witnesses who testified that they had seen
petitioner commit acts of violence against camp inmates, and an
expert witness in the interpretation and application of the DPA,
who testified that petitioner would have been found ineligible for
a visa as a matter of law if it had been determined that he had
been an armed guard at the camp, regardless of whether or not he
had volunteered for service or had committed atrocities against
inmates. In his testimony, petitioner admitted that he deliberately
gave false information in connection with Page 449 U. S. 491 his application for the DPA visa but claimed that he had been
forced to serve as a guard and denied any personal involvement in
the atrocities committed at the camp. The District Court entered
judgment for petitioner, finding, inter alia, that,
although petitioner had lied about his wartime activities when he
applied for a visa in 1949, he had been forced to serve as a guard,
and the Government had not met its burden of proving that he had
committed war crimes or atrocities at Treblinka. The court held
that, because disclosure of petitioner's involuntary service as a
concentration camp guard would not have been grounds for denial of
citizenship, his false statements about his wartime activities were
not misrepresentations of "material facts" within the meaning of
the denaturalization statute under the materiality standard
announced in Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.
S. 350 . As an alternative basis for its decision, the
court held that, even assuming misrepresentation of material facts,
equitable and mitigating circumstances -- the inconclusiveness of
the evidence that petitioner had committed war crimes or atrocities
and the uncontroverted evidence that he had been responsible and
law-abiding since coming to the United States -- required that he
be permitted to retain his citizenship. The Court of Appeals
reversed, holding that the District Court had misinterpreted the Chaunt test and that it had no discretion to enter
judgment for petitioner in the face of a finding that he had
procured his naturalization by willfully concealing material
facts. Held: Petitioner's citizenship must be revoked under §
340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act because it was
"illegally procured." Pp. 449 U. S.
505 -518.

															(a) The Government carries a heavy burden of proof in a
denaturalization proceeding, and evidence justifying revocation of
citizenship must be clear, unequivocal, and convincing, and not
leave the issue in doubt. However, there must be strict compliance
with all the congressionally imposed prerequisites to the
acquisition of citizenship. Failure to comply with any of these
conditions renders the certificate of citizenship "illegally
procured," and naturalization that is unlawfully procured can be
set aside. Pp. 449 U. S.
505 -507.

															(b) The DPA's prohibition against admission of any person "who
shall willfully make a misrepresentation" to gain admission into
the United States as an "eligible displaced person," only applies
to willful misrepresentations about "material facts." Under the
analysis of the courts below, the misrepresentation that raised the
materiality issue in this case was contained in petitioner's
application for a visa. The plain language of the definition of
"displaced persons" for purposes of the DPA as excluding
individuals who "assisted the enemy in persecuting Page 449 U. S. 492 civil[ians]" mandates the literal interpretation, rejected by
the District Court, that an individual's service as a concentration
camp armed guard -- whether voluntary or involuntary -- made him
ineligible for a visa. Since a misrepresentation must be considered
material if disclosure of the true facts would have made the
applicant ineligible for a visa, and since disclosure of the true
facts here would, as a matter of law, have made petitioner
ineligible for a visa, it is unnecessary to determine whether the
materiality test of Chaunt as to applications for
citizenship also applies to false statements in visa applications.
Pp. 449 U. S.
507 -514.

															(c) In 1970, when petitioner filed his petition for and was
admitted to citizenship, the Immigration and Nationality Act
required an applicant for citizenship to be lawfully admitted to
the United States for permanent residence, which admission, in
turn, required that the individual possess a valid unexpired
immigrant visa. And, under the law applicable at the time of
petitioner's initial entry into the United States, a visa obtained
through a material misrepresentation was not valid. Since
petitioner thus failed to satisfy a statutory requirement which
Congress had imposed as a prerequisite to the acquisition of
citizenship by naturalization, his citizenship must be revoked
because it was "illegally procured." Pp. 449 U. S.
514 -516.

															(d) Although a denaturalization action is a suit in equity, a
district court lacks equitable discretion to refrain from entering
a judgment of denaturalization against a naturalized citizen whose
citizenship was procured illegally or by willful misrepresentation
of material facts. Once a district court determines that the
Government has met its burden of proving that a naturalized citizen
obtained his citizenship illegally or by willful misrepresentation,
it has no discretion to excuse the conduct. Pp. 449 U. S.
516 -518.

															597 F.2d 946, affirmed.

															MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
BRENNAN, STEWART, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. BURGER, C.J.,
concurred in the judgment. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion
concurring in the judgment, post, p. 449 U. S. 518 .
WHITE, J., post, p. 449 U. S. 526 ,
and STEVENS, J., post, p. 449 U. S. 530 ,
filed dissenting opinions Page 449 U. S. 493 JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.

															Section 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952,
66 Stat. 260, as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a), requires revocation
of United States citizenship that was "illegally procured or . . .
procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful
misrepresentation." [ Footnote
1 ] The Government brought this denaturalization action,
alleging that petitioner procured his citizenship illegally or by
willfully misrepresenting a material fact. The District Court
entered judgment for petitioner, but the Court of Appeals reversed
and ordered entry of a judgment of denaturalization. We granted
certiorari, 444 U.S. 1070, to resolve two questions: whether
petitioner's failure to disclose, in his application for a visa to
come to this country, that he had served during the Second World
War as an armed guard at the Nazi concentration camp at Treblinka,
Poland, rendered his citizenship revocable as "illegally procured"
or procured by willful misrepresentation of a material fact, and if
so, whether the District Court nonetheless possessed equitable
discretion to refrain from entering judgment in favor of the
Government under these circumstances. Page 449 U. S. 494 A Petitioner was born in the Ukraine in 1907. He was drafted into
the Russian Army in June, 1941, but was captured by the Germans
shortly thereafter. After being held in a series of prisoner-of-war
camps, petitioner was selected to go to the German camp at
Travnicki in Poland, where he received training as a concentration
camp guard. In September, 1942, he was assigned to the Nazi
concentration camp at Treblinka in Poland, where he was issued a
uniform and rifle and where he served as a guard during 1942 and
1943. The infamous Treblinka concentration camp was described by
the District Court as a "human abattoir" at which several hundred
thousand Jewish civilians were murdered. [ Footnote 2 ] After an armed uprising by the inmates at
Treblinka led to the closure of the camp in August, 1943,
petitioner was transferred to a German labor camp at Danzig and
then to the German prisoner of war camp at Poelitz, where he
continued to serve as an armed guard. Petitioner was eventually
transferred to Hamburg where he served as a warehouse guard.
Shortly before the British forces entered that city in 1945,
petitioner discarded his uniform and was able to pass as a
civilian. For the next four years, he worked in Germany as a
laborer. Page 449 U. S. 495 B In 1948, Congress enacted the Displaced Persons Act (DPA or
Act), 62 Stat. 1009, to enable European refugees driven from their
homelands by the war to emigrate to the United States without
regard to traditional immigration quotas. The Act's definition of
"displaced persons" [ Footnote
3 ] eligible for immigration to this country specifically
excluded individuals who had "assisted the enemy in persecuting
civil[ians]" or had "voluntarily assisted the enemy forces . . . in
their operations. . . ." [ Footnote
4 ] Section 10 of the DPA, 62 Stat. 1013, placed the burden of
proving eligibility under the Act on the person seeking admission,
and provided that

															"[a]ny person who shall willfully make a misrepresentation for
the purpose of gaining admission into the United States as an
eligible displaced person shall thereafter not be admissible into
the United States."

															The Act established an elaborate system for determining
eligibility for displaced person status. Each applicant was first
interviewed by representatives of the International Refugee
Organization of the United Nations (IRO) who ascertained that the
person was a refugee or displaced person. [ Footnote 5 ] The applicant Page 449 U. S. 496 was then interviewed by an official of the Displaced Persons
Commission, [ Footnote 6 ] who
made a preliminary determination about his eligibility under the
DPA. The final decision was made by one of several State Department
vice consuls who were specially trained for the task and sent to
Europe to administer the Act. [ Footnote 7 ] Thereafter, the application was reviewed by
officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to
make sure that the applicant was admissible into the United States
under the standard immigration laws.

															In October, 1949, petitioner applied for admission to the United
States as a displaced person. Petitioner falsified his visa
application by lying about his wartime activities. He told the
investigators from the Displaced Persons Commission that he had
been a farmer in Sarny, Poland, from 1937 until March, 1942, and
that he had then been deported to Germany and forced to work in a
factory in Poelitz until the end of the war, when he fled to
Hamburg. [ Footnote 8 ]
Petitioner told the same Page 449 U. S. 497 story to the vice consul who reviewed his case, and he signed a
sworn statement containing these false representations as part of
his application for a DPA visa. Petitioner's false statements were
not discovered at the time, and he was issued a DPA visa and sailed
to the United States, where he was admitted for permanent
residence. He took up residence in Connecticut and, for three
decades, led an uneventful and law-abiding life as a factory
worker.

															In 1969, petitioner applied for naturalization at the INS office
in Hartford, Conn. Petitioner did not disclose his wartime service
as a concentration camp armed guard in his application, [ Footnote 9 ] and he did not mention it
in his sworn testimony to INS naturalization examiners. The INS
examiners took petitioner's visa papers at face value, and
recommended that his citizenship application be granted. On this
recommendation, the Superior Court of New Haven County granted his
petition for naturalization, and he became an American citizen on
April 23, 1970. C Seven years later, after petitioner had moved to Miami Beach and
become a resident of Florida, [ Footnote 10 ] the Government filed this action in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
to revoke petitioner's citizenship. The complaint alleged that
petitioner should have been deemed ineligible for a DPA visa
because he had served as an armed guard at Treblinka and had
committed crimes or atrocities Page 449 U. S. 498 against inmates of the camp because they were Jewish. The
Government charged that petitioner had willfully concealed this
information both in applying for a DPA visa and in applying for
citizenship, and that, therefore, petitioner had procured his
naturalization illegally or by willfully misrepresenting material
facts. [ Footnote 11 ]

															The Government's witnesses at trial included six survivors of
Treblinka who claimed that they had seen petitioner commit specific
acts of violence against inmates of the camp. [ Footnote 12 ] Each witness made a pretrial
identification of petitioner from a. photo array that included his
1949 visa photograph, and three of the witnesses made courtroom
identifications. The Government also called as a witness Kempton
Jenkins, a career foreign service officer who served in Germany
after the war as one of the vice consuls who administered the DPA.
Jenkins had been trained to administer the Act and had reviewed Page 449 U. S. 499 some 5,000 visa applications during his tour of duty. Record
711-714, 72722. Without objection from petitioner, Jenkins was
proffered by the Government and accepted by the court, as an expert
witness on the interpretation and application of the DPA. Id. at 719-721, 726-727, 734.

															Jenkins testified that the vice consuls made the final decision
about an applicant's eligibility for displaced person status.
[ Footnote 13 ] He indicated
that, if there had been any suggestion that an applicant "had
served or been involved in" a concentration camp, processing of his
application would have been suspended to permit a thorough
investigation. Id. at 766. If it were then determined that
the applicant had been an armed guard at the camp, he would have
been found ineligible for a visa as a matter of law. Id. at 767-768, 822. Jenkins explained that service as an armed guard
at a concentration camp brought the applicant under the statutory
exclusion of persons who "assisted the enemy in persecuting
civil[ians]," regardless of whether the applicant had not
volunteered for service [ Footnote 14 ] or had not committed atrocities against
inmates. Id. at 768, 797-798. Jenkins emphasized that this
interpretation of the Act was "uniformly" accepted by the vice
consuls, and that, furthermore, he knew of no case in which a known
concentration camp guard was found eligible for a DPA visa.
[ Footnote 15 ] Id. at 767. Jenkins also described the elaborate Page 449 U. S. 500 system that was used to screen visa applicants, and he testified
that, in interviewing applicants, the vice consuls bent over
backwards in interrogating each person to make sure the applicant
understood what he was doing. Id.; at 746.

															Petitioner took the stand in his own behalf. He admitted his
service as an armed guard at Treblinka and that he had known that
thousands of Jewish inmates were being murdered there. Id. at 1442, 1451-1452, 1465. Petitioner claimed that he was forced to
serve as a guard, and denied any personal involvement in the
atrocities committed at the camp, id. at 1276, 1297-1298,
1539-1540; he insisted that he had merely been a perimeter guard.
Petitioner admitted, however, that he had followed orders and shot
in the general direction of escaping inmates during the August,
1943, uprising that led to closure of the camp. Id. at
1507-1509, 1546, 1564. Petitioner maintained that he was a prisoner
of war at Treblinka, id. at 1495, although he admitted
that the Russian armed guards significantly outnumbered the German
soldiers at the camp, [ Footnote
16 ] that he was paid a stipend and received a good service
stripe from the Germans, and that he was allowed to leave the camp
regularly, but never tried to escape. Id. at 1467-1471,
1489-1494, 1497, 1508. [ Footnote
17 ] Finally, petitioner conceded that he deliberately gave
false statements about his wartime activities to the investigators
from the Displaced Persons Commission and to the vice consul who
reviewed his visa application. Id. at 1518-1524.

															The District Court entered judgment in favor of petitioner. Page 449 U. S. 501 455 F.
Supp. 893 (1978). The court found that petitioner had served as
an armed guard at Treblinka, and that he lied about his wartime
activities when he applied for a PA visa in 1949. [ Footnote 18 ] The court found, however, that
petitioner was forced to serve as a guard. The court concluded that
it could credit neither the Treblinka survivors' identification of
petitioner nor their testimony, [ Footnote 19 ] and it held that the Government had not met
its burden of proving that petitioner committed war crimes or
atrocities at Treblinka.

															Turning to the question whether petitioner's false statements
about his activities during the war were misrepresentations of
"material" facts, the District Court, relying on our decision in Chaunt v. United States, 364 U. S. 350 (1960), held that the Government had to prove

															"that either (1) facts were suppressed 'which, if known, would
have warranted denial of citizenship' or (2) that their disclosure
'might have been useful in an investigation Page 449 U. S. 502 possibly leading to the discovery of other facts warranting
denial of citizenship.'"

															455 F. Supp. at 915 (quoting 364 U.S. at 364 U. S.
355 ). The District Court rejected the Government's claim
that disclosure of petitioner's service as a concentration camp
armed guard would have been grounds for denial of citizenship. The
court therefore ruled that the withheld facts were not material
under the first Chaunt test. The Government argued,
however, that the second Chaunt test did not require proof
that the concealed facts prevented an investigation that would have revealed facts warranting denial of
citizenship. The Government contended, instead, that the second
test merely required proof that an investigation might have uncovered such facts, and it argued that petitioner's
concealment of his service at Treblinka fell within this test. The
District Court conceded that the language of Chaunt was
ambiguous enough to support the Government's interpretation of the
second test. But relying on decisions by the United States Courts
of Appeals for the Third and Ninth Circuits, [ Footnote 20 ] the District Court rejected the
Government's position and interpreted both Chaunt tests as
requiring proof that "the true facts would have warranted denial of
citizenship." 455 F. Supp. at 916. Applying this test, the court
ruled that petitioner's false statements were not "material" within
the meaning of the denaturalization statute. In doing so, the court
first rejected Jenkins' testimony and held that petitioner was not
ineligible for a DPA visa. The court concluded that petitioner did
not come under the DPA's exclusion of persons who had assisted in
the persecution of civilians because he had served involuntarily.
Second, the court found that, although disclosure of petitioner's
service as a Treblinka guard "certainly would" have prompted an
investigation into Page 449 U. S. 503 his activities, the Government had failed to prove that such an
inquiry would have uncovered any additional facts warranting denial
of petitioner's application for a visa. Id. at 916.
[ Footnote 21 ]

															As an alternative basis for its decision, the District Court
held that, even assuming that petitioner had misrepresented
"material" facts, equitable and mitigating circumstances required
that petitioner be permitted to retain his citizenship.
Specifically, the court relied on its finding that the evidence
that petitioner had committed any war crimes or atrocities at
Treblinka was inconclusive, as well as the uncontroverted evidence
that he had been responsible and law-abiding since coming to the
United States. The District Court suggested that this Court had not
previously considered the question whether a district court has
discretion to consider the equities in a denaturalization case. The
court reasoned that, since naturalization courts have
considered the equities in determining whether citizenship should
be granted, similar discretion should also be available in denaturalization proceedings.

															The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded
the case with instructions to enter judgment for the Government and
to cancel petitioner's certificate of citizenship. 597 F.2d 946
(1979). Although the Court of Appeals agreed with the District
Court that Chaunt was controlling on the question of the
materiality of petitioner's false statements, it disagreed with the
District Court's interpretation Page 449 U. S. 504 of the second Chaunt test as requiring proof of
ultimate facts warranting denial of citizenship. Instead, the Court
of Appeals agreed with the Government that the second Chaunt test requires only clear and convincing proof that
(a) disclosure of the true facts would have led to an
investigation and (b) the investigation might have
uncovered other facts warranting denial of citizenship. [ Footnote 22 ]

															In applying its formulation of the second Chaunt test
to the facts of the case, the Court of Appeals concluded that one
part of the test was satisfied by the District Court's finding that
the American authorities would have conducted an investigation if
petitioner had disclosed that he had served as an armed guard at
Treblinka. The Court of Appeals then found that Jenkins' testimony
and other evidence before the District Court clearly and
convincingly proved that the investigation might have resulted in
denial of petitioner's application for a visa, [ Footnote 23 ] and the Court of Appeals held
that petitioner procured his naturalization "by misrepresentation
and concealment of his whereabouts during the war years and his
service as a concentration camp guard." 597 F.2d at 953. The Court
of Appeals further held that the District Court had erred in
supposing that it had discretion to enter judgment in favor of
petitioner notwithstanding a finding that Page 449 U. S. 505 petitioner had procured his naturalization by willfully
concealing material facts. The Court of Appeals concluded that
"[t]he denaturalization statute . . . does not accord the district
courts any authority to excuse the fraudulent procurement of
citizenship." Id. at 954. Accordingly, the Court of
Appeals held that petitioner's citizenship must be revoked.
[ Footnote 24 ] We affirm, but
for reasons which differ from those stated by the Court of
Appeals. II Our examination of the questions presented by this case must
proceed within the framework established by two lines of prior
decisions of this Court that may, at first blush, appear to point
in different directions.

															On the one hand, our decisions have recognized that the right to
acquire American citizenship is a precious one, and that, once
citizenship has been acquired, its loss can have severe and
unsettling consequences. See Costello v. United States, 365 U. S. 265 , 365 U. S. 269 (1961); Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.S. at 364 U. S. 353 ; Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.
S. 665 , 322 U. S.
675 -676 (1944); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118 , 320 U. S. 122 (1943). For these reasons, we have held that the Government
"carries a heavy burden of proof in a proceeding to divest a
naturalized citizen of his citizenship." Costello v. United
States, supra at 365 U. S. 269 .
The evidence justifying revocation of citizenship must be
" clear, unequivocal, and convincing'" and not leave "`the issue
in doubt.'" Schneiderman v. United States, supra at 320 U. S. 125 (quoting Maxwell Land-Grant Case, 121 U.
S. 325 , 121 U. S. 381 (1887)). Any less exacting standard would be inconsistent with the
importance of the right that Page 449 U. S. 506 is at stake.in a denaturalization proceeding. And in reviewing
denaturalization cases, we have carefully examined the record
ourselves. See, e.g., Costello v. United States, supra; Chaunt
v. United States, supra; Nowak v. United States, 356 U.
S. 660 (1958); Baumgartner v. United States,
supra. At the same time, our cases have also recognized that there must
be strict compliance with all the congressionally imposed
prerequisites to the acquisition of citizenship. Failure to comply
with any of these conditions renders the certificate of citizenship
"illegally procured," and naturalization that is unlawfully
procured can be set aside. 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a); Afroyim v.
Rusk, 387 U. S. 253 , 387 U. S. 267 ,
n. 23 (1967). See Maney v. United States, 278 U. S.
17 (1928); United States v. Ness, 245 U.
S. 319 (1917); United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472 (1917). As we explained in one of these prior decisions:

															"An alien who seeks political rights as a member of this Nation
can rightfully obtain them only upon terms and conditions specified
by Congress. . . ."

															" * * * *" "No alien has the slightest right to naturalization unless all
statutory requirements are complied with; and every certificate of
citizenship must be treated as granted upon condition that the
government may challenge it . . . and demand its cancellation
unless issued in accordance with such requirements." United States v. Ginsberg, supra at 243 U. S.
474 -475. This judicial insistence on strict compliance
with the statutory conditions precedent to naturalization is simply
an acknowledgment of the fact that Congress alone has the
constitutional authority to prescribe rules for naturalization,
[ Footnote 25 ] and the
courts' task is to assure compliance with the particular
prerequisites to the acquisition of United States citizenship Page 449 U. S. 507 by naturalization legislated to safeguard the integrity of this
"priceless treasure." Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.
S. 763 , 339 U. S. 791 (1950) (Black, J., dissenting).

															Thus, what may at first glance appear to be two inconsistent
lines of cases actually reflect our consistent recognition of the
importance of the issues that are at stake -- for the citizen as
well as the Government -- in a denaturalization proceeding. With
this in mind, we turn to petitioner's contention that the Court of
Appeals erred in reversing the judgment of the District Court. III Petitioner does not, and indeed cannot, challenge the
Government's contention that he willfully misrepresented facts
about his wartime activities when he applied for a DPA visa in
1949. Petitioner admitted at trial that he "willingly" gave false
information in connection with his application for a DPA visa so as
to avoid the possibility of repatriation to the Soviet Union.
[ Footnote 26 ] Record 1520.
The District Court specifically noted that there was no dispute
that petitioner "lied" in his application. 455 F. Supp. at 914.
Thus, petitioner falls within the plain language of the DPA's
admonition that

															"[a]ny person who shall willfully make a misrepresentation for
the purposes of gaining admission into the United States as an
eligible displaced person shall thereafter not be admissible into
the United States."

															62 Stat. 1013. This does not, however, end our inquiry, because
we agree with the Government [ Footnote 27 ] that this provision only applies to willful
misrepresentations about "material" facts. [ Footnote 28 ] The first issue we must Page 449 U. S. 508 examine then, is whether petitioner's false statements about his
activities during the war, particularly the concealment of his
Treblinka service, were "material." A At the outset, we must determine the proper standard to be
applied in judging whether petitioner's false statements were
material. Both petitioner and the Government have assumed, as did
the District Court and the Court of Appeals, that materiality under
the above-quoted provision of the DPA is governed by the standard
announced in Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.
S. 350 (1960). But we do not find it so obvious that the Chaunt test is applicable here. In that case, the
Government charged that Chaunt had procured his citizenship by
concealing and misrepresenting his record of arrests in the United
States in his application for citizenship, and that the arrest
record was a "material" fact within the meaning of the
denaturalization statute. [ Footnote 29 ] Thus, the materiality standard announced in
that case pertained to false statements in applications for citizenship, and the arrests that Chaunt failed to
disclose all took place after he came to this country. The case
presented no question concerning the lawfulness of his initial
entry into the United States.

															In the instant case, however, the events on which the Government
relies in seeking to revoke petitioner's citizenship took place
before he came to this country, and the Government Page 449 U. S. 509 is seeking to revoke petitioner's citizenship because of the
alleged unlawfulness of his initial entry into the United States.
Although the complaint charged that petitioner misrepresented facts
about his wartime activities in both his application for a visa and
his application for naturalization, both the District Court and the
Court of Appeals focused on the false statements in petitioner's
application for a visa. Thus, under the analysis of both the
District Court and the Court of Appeals, the misrepresentation that
raises the materiality issue in this case was contained in
petitioner's application for a visa. [ Footnote 30 ] These distinctions plainly raise the
important question whether the Chaunt test for materiality
of misrepresentations in applications for citizenship also
applies to false statements in visa applications.

															It is, of course, clear that the materiality of a false
statement in a visa application must be measured in terms of its
effect on the applicant's admissibility into this country. See
United States v. Rossi, 299 F.2d 650, 652 (CA9 1962). At the
very least, a misrepresentation must be considered material if
disclosure of the true facts would have made the applicant
ineligible for a visa. Because we conclude that disclosure of the
true facts about petitioner's service as an armed guard at
Treblinka would, as a matter of law, have made him ineligible for a
visa under the DPA, we find it unnecessary to resolve the question
whether Chaunt's materiality test also governs false
statements in visa applications.

															Section 2(b) of the DPA, 62 Stat. 1009, by incorporating the
definition of "[p]ersons who will not be [considered displaced Page 449 U. S. 510 persons]" contained in the Constitution of the IRO, see n 3, supra, specifically provided that individuals who "assisted the enemy in
persecuting civil[ians]" were ineligible for visas under the Act.
[ Footnote 31 ] Jenkins
testified that petitioner's service as an armed guard at a
concentration camp -- whether voluntary or not -- made him
ineligible for a visa under this provision. [ Footnote 32 ] Jenkins' testimony was based on his
firsthand Page 449 U. S. 511 experience as a vice consul in Germany after the war reviewing
DPA visa applications. Jenkins also testified that the practice of
the vice consuls was to circulate among the other vice consuls the
case files of any visa applicant who was shown to have been a
concentration camp armed guard. Record 826. Thus, Jenkins and the
other vice consuls were particularly well informed about the
practice concerning the eligibility of former camp guards for DPA
visas. The District Court evidently agreed that a literal
interpretation of the statute would confirm the accuracy of
Jenkins' testimony. 455 F. Supp. at 913. But by construing § 2(a)
as only excluding individuals who voluntarily assisted in
the persecution of civilians, the District Court was able to ignore
Jenkins' uncontroverted testimony about how the Act was interpreted
by the officials who administered it. [ Footnote 33 ] Page 449 U. S. 512 The Court of Appeals evidently accepted the District Court's
construction of the Act, since it agreed that the Government had
failed to show that petitioner was ineligible for a DPA visa. 597
F.2d at 953. Because we are unable to find any basis for an
"involuntary assistance" exception in the language of § 2(a), we
conclude that the District Court's construction of the Act was
incorrect. The plain language of the Act mandates precisely the
literal interpretation that the District Court rejected: an
individual's service as a concentration camp armed guard -- whether
voluntary or involuntary -- made him ineligible for a visa. That
Congress was perfectly capable of adopting a "voluntariness"
limitation where it felt that one was necessary is plain from
comparing § 2(a) with § 2(b), which excludes only those individuals
who " voluntarily assisted the enemy forces . . . in their
operations. . . ." Under traditional principles of statutory
construction, the deliberate omission of the word "voluntary" from
§ 2(a) compels the conclusion that the statute made all those who assisted in the persecution of civilians ineligible for
visas. [ Footnote 34 ] See National Railroad Passenger
Corp. Page 449 U. S. 513 v. National Assoc. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U.
S. 453 , 414 U. S. 458 (1974); Botany Worsted Mills v. United States, 278 U. S. 282 , 278 U. S. 289 (1929). As this Court has previously stated:

															"We are not at liberty to imply a condition which is opposed to
the explicit terms of the statute. . . . To [so] hold . . . is not
to construe the Act, but to amend it." Detroit Trust Co. v. The Thomas Barlum, 293 U. S.
21 , 293 U. S. 38 (1934). See FTC v. Sun Oil Co., 371 U.
S. 505 , 371 U. S.
514 -515 (1963). Thus, the plain language of the statute
and Jenkins' uncontradicted and unequivocal testimony leave no room
for doubt that, if petitioner had disclosed the fact that he had
been an armed guard at Treblinka, he would have been found
ineligible for a visa under the DPA. [ Footnote 35 ] This being so, we must conclude that
petitioner's Page 449 U. S. 514 false statements about his wartime activities were "willfu[l]
[and material] misrepresentation[s] [made] for the purpose of
gaining admission into the United States as an eligible displaced
person." 62 Stat. 1013. Under the express terms of the statute,
petitioner was "thereafter not . . . admissible into the United
States." Ibid. Our conclusion that petitioner was, as a matter of law,
ineligible for a visa under the DPA makes the resolution of this
case fairly straightforward. As noted, supra at 449 U. S.
506 -507, our cases have established that a naturalized
citizen's failure to comply with the statutory prerequisites for
naturalization renders his certificate of citizenship revocable as
"illegally procured" under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a). In 1970, when
petitioner filed his application for, and was admitted to,
citizenship, §§ 316(a) and 318 of the Immigration and Nationality
Act of 1952, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1427(a) and 1429, required an applicant
for citizenship to be lawfully admitted to the United States for
permanent residence. [ Footnote
36 ] Lawful admission for permanent Page 449 U. S. 515 residence, in turn, required that the individual possess a valid
unexpired immigrant visa. At the time of petitioner's initial entry
into this country, § 13(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
of 1924, ch.190, 43 Stat. 153, 161 (repealed in 1952), provided
that "[n]o immigrant shall be admitted to the United States unless
he (1) has an unexpired immigration visa. . . ." [ Footnote 37 ] The courts at that time
consistently held that § 13(a) required a valid visa, and that a
visa obtained through a material misrepresentation was not valid. See, e.g., Ablett v. Brownell, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 387, 391,
240 F.2d 625, 629 (1957); United States ex rel. Jankowski v.
Shaughnessy, 186 F.2d 580, 582 (CA2 1951). Section 10 of the
DPA, 62 Stat. 1013, provided that

															"all immigration laws, . . . shall be applicable to . . .
eligible displaced . . . persons who apply to be or who are
admitted into the United States pursuant to this Act."

															And as previously noted, petitioner was inadmissible into this
country under the express terms of the DPA. Accordingly, inasmuch
as petitioner failed to satisfy a statutory requirement which
Congress has imposed as a prerequisite to the acquisition of
citizenship by naturalization, we must agree with the Government
that petitioner's citizenship must be revoked because it was
"illegally procured." See Polites v. United States, 364 U. S. 426 , 364 U. S.
436 -437 (1960); Schwinn v. United States, 311
U.S. 616 (1940); Maney v. United States, 278 U.S. at 278 U. S. 22 -23; United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U.S. at 475; Luria v.
United States, 231 U. S. 9 , 231 U. S. 17 (1913); Johannessen v. United States, 225 U.
S. 227 , 225 U. S. 240 (1912). Cf. Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. at 320 U. S. 163 (Douglas, J., concurring). [ Footnote 38 ] In the lexicon Page 449 U. S. 516 of our cases, one of the "jurisdictional facts upon which the
grant [of citizenship] is predicated," Johannessen v. United
States, supra at 225 U. S. 240 ,
was missing at the time petitioner became a citizen. B This conclusion would lead us to affirm on statutory grounds
(and not on the basis of our decision in Chaunt ), the
judgment of the Court of Appeals. Petitioner argues, however, that,
in a denaturalization proceeding, a district court has discretion
to consider the equities in determining whether citizenship should
be revoked. This is the view adopted by the District Court but
rejected by the Court of Appeals. It is true, as petitioner notes,
that this Court has held that a denaturalization action is a suit
in equity. Knauer v. United States, 328 U.
S. 654 , 328 U. S. 671 (1946); Luria v. United States, supra at 231 U. S. 27 -28.
Petitioner further points to numerous cases in which the courts
have exercised discretion in determining whether citizenship should
be granted. See, e.g., In re Iwanenko's
Petition, 145 F.
Supp. 838 (ND Ill.1956); Petition of
R., 56 F. Supp.
969 (Mass.1944). Petitioner would therefore have us conclude
that similar discretion should be available to a denaturalization
court to weigh the equities in light of all the circumstances in
order to arrive at a solution that is just and fair. He then argues
that, if such power exists, the facts of this case, particularly
his record of good conduct over the past 29 years and the
reasonable doubts about some of the allegations in the Government's
complaint, all weigh in favor of permitting him to retain his
citizenship. Although petitioner presents this argument with
respect to revocation of citizenship procured through willful
misrepresentation of material facts, we assume that petitioner
believes that courts should also be allowed to weigh the equities
in Page 449 U. S. 517 deciding whether to revoke citizenship that was "illegally
procured," which is our holding in this case.

															We agree with the Court of Appeals that district courts lack
equitable discretion to refrain from entering a judgment of
denaturalization against a naturalized citizen whose citizenship
was procured illegally or by willful misrepresentation of material
facts. Petitioner is correct in noting that courts necessarily and
properly exercise discretion in characterizing certain facts while
determining whether an applicant for citizenship meets some of the
requirements for naturalization. [ Footnote 39 ] But that limited discretion does not include
the authority to excuse illegal or fraudulent procurement of
citizenship. As the Court of Appeals stated:

															"Once it has been determined that a person does not qualify for
citizenship, . . . the district court has no discretion to ignore
the defect and grant citizenship."

															597 F.2d at 954. By the same token, once a district court
determines that the Government has met its burden of proving that a
naturalized citizen obtained his citizenship illegally or by
willful misrepresentation, it has no discretion to excuse the
conduct. Indeed, contrary to the District Court's suggestion, see supra at 449 U. S. 503 ,
this issue had been settled by prior decisions of this Court. In
case after case, we have rejected lower court efforts to moderate
or otherwise avoid the statutory mandate of Congress in
denaturalization proceedings. For example, in United States v.
Ness, 245 U. S. 319 (1917), we ordered the denaturalization of an individual who
"possessed the personal qualifications which entitle aliens to
admission and to citizenship," id. at 245 U. S. 321 ,
but who had failed to file a certificate of arrival as required by
statute. We explained that there was "no power . . . vested in the
naturalization court to dispense with" this requirement. Page 449 U. S. 518 Id. at 245 U. S. 324 .
We repeat here what we said in one of these earlier cases:

															"An alien who seeks political rights as a member of this Nation
can rightfully obtain them only upon the terms and conditions
specified by Congress. Courts are without authority to sanction
changes or modifications; their duty is rigidly to enforce the
legislative will in respect of a matter so vital to the public
welfare. United States v. Ginsberg , 243 U.S. at 243 U. S. 474 -75." See Maney v. United States, 278 U.S. at 278 U. S. 22 -23; Johannessen v. United States, 225 U.S. at 241-242.

															In sum, we hold that petitioner's citizenship must be revoked
under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a) because it was illegally procured.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
[ Footnote 40 ] So ordered. THE CHIEF JUSTICE concurs in the judgment.

															[ Footnote 1 ]

															Title 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a) provides in pertinent part:

															"It shall be the duty of the United States attorneys . . . to
institute proceedings . . . in the judicial district in which the
naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing suit, for
the purpose of revoking and setting aside the order admitting such
person to citizenship and canceling the certificate of
naturalization on the ground that such order and certificate of
naturalization were illegally procured or were procured by
concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation. . .
."

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															Historians estimate that some 800,000 people were murdered at
Treblinka. See L. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews,
1933-1945, p. 149 (1975); R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the
European Jews 572 (1978) .

															The District Court described Treblinka in this manner:

															"It contained only living facilities for the SS and the persons
working there. The thousands who arrived daily on the trains had no
need for barracks or mess halls: they would be dead before
nightfall. It was operated with a barbarous methodology -- brutally
efficient -- and such camps surely fill one of the darkest chapters
in the annals of human existence, certainly the darkest in that
which we call Western civilization." 455 F.
Supp. 893 , 901, n. 12 (SD Fla.1978).

															[ Footnote 3 ]

															The DPA incorporated the definition of "refugees or displaced
persons" contained in Annex I to the Constitution of the
International Refugee Organization of the United Nations (IRO). See § 2(b), 62 Stat. 1009. The IRO Constitution, 62 Stat.
3037-3055, was ratified by the United States on December 16, 1946
(T.I.A.S. No. 1846), and became effective on August 20, 1948. See 62 Stat. 3037.

															[ Footnote 4 ]

															The IRO Constitution provided that the following persons would
not be eligible for refugee or displaced person status:

															"1. War criminals, quislings and traitors."

															"2. Any other persons who can be shown:"

															"( a ) to have assisted the enemy in persecuting civil
populations of countries, Members of the United Nations; or"

															"( b ) to have voluntarily assisted the enemy forces
since the outbreak of the second world war in their operations
against the United Nations."

															Annex I, Part II, 62 Stat. 3051-3052.

															[ Footnote 5 ]

															The IRO was established in 1946 as a temporary specialized
agency of the United Nations to deal with all aspects of the
refugee problem in postwar Europe. The IRO established and
administered a network of camps and resettlement centers where the
refugees were registered, housed, fed, and provided with medical
care. Where possible, the IRO provided for the refugees'
rehabilitation and training, arranged legal protection for as long
as they were stateless, and negotiated agreements for resettlement. See generally L. Holborn, The International Refugee
Organization: A Specialized Agency of The United Nations: Its
History and Work 1946-1952 (1956).

															[ Footnote 6 ]

															The DPA established a Displaced Persons Commission to oversee
and administer the resettlement program envisaged by the Act. 62
Stat. 1012-1013.

															[ Footnote 7 ]

															According to testimony presented at trial by one of the
Government's witnesses who served as a vice consul, between 35 and
40 vice consuls were involved in administering the Act. Record 715.
Each vice consul spent three months in training in Washington and
was then sent to Europe, where he received further training before
he was put to work reviewing applications. Id. at 711-712,
719-721, 723, 726-727

															[ Footnote 8 ]

															Petitioner also lied about his birthplace and nationality,
claiming that he was born in Sarny, in Poland, when in fact he was
born in Sivasch, in the Ukraine. App. 26. However, on November 21,
1950, after he arrived in this country, petitioner filed an
Application for a Certificate of Arrival and Preliminary Form for a
Declaration of Intention in which he correctly listed his
birthplace as Sivasch in the Ukraine. Petitioner again provided the
correct information when he filed a similar form on April 7, 1951.
455 F. Supp. at 911.

															[ Footnote 9 ]

															It should be noted that none of the questions in the application
for citizenship explicitly required petitioner to disclose this
information. Perhaps the most closely related question on the
application form was one that required him to list his foreign
military service. Petitioner indicated only that he had served in
the Russian Army. App. 33.

															[ Footnote 10 ] See 455 F. Supp. at 896, n. 3.

															[ Footnote 11 ]

															The complaint also charged that petitioner had deliberately made
false statements for the purpose of securing his naturalization,
and had thereby failed to satisfy the statutory requirement of good
moral character during the 5-year period immediately preceding the
filing of his application for naturalization. See 8 U.S.C.
§ 1427(a).

															[ Footnote 12 ]

															One witness, Eugeun Turowski, testified that he saw petitioner
shoot and whip Jewish prisoners at the camp. Record 134 136.
Another, Schalom Kohn, testified that he saw petitioner almost
every day for the first few months Kohn was at Treblinka, id. at 262-263, that petitioner beat him with an
iron-tipped whip, and that he saw petitioner whip and shoot other
prisoners. Id. at 268, 271, 322-323. The third witness,
Josef Czarny, claimed that he saw petitioner beat arriving
prisoners, id. at 434, and that he once saw him shoot a
prisoner. Id. at 435-442. Gustaw Boraks testified that he
saw petitioner repeatedly chase prisoners to the gas chambers,
beating them as they went. Id. at 886-888. Boraks also
claimed that, on one occasion, he heard a shot and ran outside to
see petitioner, with a gun drawn, standing close to a wounded woman
who later told him that petitioner was responsible for the
shooting. Id. at 630-634. Sonia Lewkowicz testified that
she saw petitioner shoot a Jewish prisoner. Id. at 973,
1013-1015, 1039-1040. Finally, Pinchas Epstein testified that
petitioner shot and killed a friend of his after making him crawl
naked on all fours. Id. at 1056-1070.

															[ Footnote 13 ]

															The vice consul's decision could be overridden by the consul
general, but Jenkins testified that he knew of no situation in
which this happened. Id. at 721-722.

															[ Footnote 14 ]

															On the basis of the vice consuls' experiences, Jenkins
discounted the possibility that any concentration camp guards had
served involuntarily. Id. at 756, 772, 795-796. Jenkins
reported that all the guards who were questioned by the consular
officials about their reasons for serving as guards invariably
admitted that their service was voluntary. Id. at 807-808.
In addition, Jenkins testified that, even if an applicant refused
to acknowledge that his service as an armed guard was voluntary, he
would still have been denied a visa. Id. at 822-826.

															[ Footnote 15 ]

															Jenkins testified that, at times, concentration camp survivors
who recognized a visa applicant as a guard would notify consular
officials, who, in turn, investigated the matter. If the accusation
proved true, the applicant was confronted with it and invariably
found ineligible for a visa. Id. at 804, 807, 82827.

															[ Footnote 16 ]

															Petitioner testified that there were between 120 and 150 armed
Russian guards and some 20 to 30 Germans. Id. at
1111-1445.

															[ Footnote 17 ]

															Petitioner testified that between 15 and 20 Russian guards
escaped from the camp. Four were caught and apparently executed,
but petitioner testified that he did not know what happened to the
others. Id. at 1535-1536, 1555.

															[ Footnote 18 ]

															The court also noted that there was no dispute about the fact
that petitioner lied when he listed his birthplace as Sarny,
Poland. 455 F. Supp. at 914.

															[ Footnote 19 ]

															The court rejected the witnesses' pretrial identifications
because it found the photo spreads from which the identifications
were made impermissibly suggestive. The court also rejected the
in-court identifications by three of the witnesses. The court noted
that the first witness initially picked out a spectator in the
courtroom, and only identified petitioner when it became obvious
from the crowd reaction that he had made a mistake. The other two
witnesses identified petitioner, who was seated at counsel table
surrounded by much younger men. The court concluded that the
courtroom identifications were tainted by the photo identification
and by discussion of the case among the witnesses.

															The court also found credibility problems with the testimony of
the Treblinka survivors, and it concluded that,

															"[e]ven without defendant's testimony, the Government's evidence
on the claimed commission of atrocities . . . fell short of meeting
the 'clear, convincing and unequivocal' burden of proof. . . . With
defendant's testimony, the Government's evidence . . . left the
court with suspicions about whether defendant participated in
atrocities at Treblinka, but they were only suspicions." Id. at 909.

															[ Footnote 20 ] United States v. Riela, 337 F.2d 986 (CA3 1964); United States v. Rossi, 299 F.2d 650 (CA9 1962); La
Madrid-Peraza v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 492
F.2d 1297 (CA9 1974).

															[ Footnote 21 ]

															The court also found that petitioner's false statements about
his birthplace and nationality were not "material"
misrepresentations. The court explained that the true facts would
not, of themselves, have justified denial of citizenship, since
Ukrainians per se were not excluded under the DPA. The
court also noted that petitioner disclosed the truth about his
place of birth and nationality when he filed Declarations of
Intention in 1950 and 1951, and that the INS examiner who
interviewed petitioner in connection with his application for
citizenship testified that his previous false statements about
these questions were not a cause for concern. 455 F. Supp. at
915.

															[ Footnote 22 ]

															The Court of Appeals explained that the District Court's
interpretation

															"destroyed the utility of the second Chaunt test, since
it would require, as does the first Chaunt test, that the
government prove ultimate facts warranting denial of
citizenship."

															59 F.2d at 951. The court also pointed out that adopting the
District Court's view would provide a strong incentive to an
applicant for a visa or citizenship to lie about his background,
and thereby prevent an inquiry into his fitness at a time when he
has the burden of proving eligibility. If his deception were later
uncovered, the Government would face the difficult tasks of
conducting an inquiry into his past, discovering facts warranting
disqualification, and proving those facts by clear and convincing
evidence. Ibid. [ Footnote 23 ]

															The Court of Appeals noted that its formulation of the second Chaunt test was adopted by the Second Circuit in United States v. Oddo, 314 F.2d 115, cert.
denied, 375 U.S. 833 (1963).

															[ Footnote 24 ]

															Because it ruled in favor of the Government under the second Chaunt test, the Court of Appeals had no reason to
consider the Government's claim that, contrary to the District
Court's findings, the evidence at trial clearly and convincingly
proved that petitioner committed crimes and atrocities against
inmates while he was an armed guard at Treblinka. We accept, for
purposes of this case, the District Court's findings on this
issue.

															[ Footnote 25 ]

															The Constitution empowers Congress to "establish an uniform Rule
of Naturalization." Art. I, § 8, cl. 4.

															[ Footnote 26 ]

															That petitioner gave these false statements because he was
motivated by fear of repatriation to the Soviet Union indicates
that he understood that disclosing the truth would have affected
his chances of being admitted to the United States, and confirms
that his misrepresentation was willful.

															[ Footnote 27 ] See Brief for United States 18, n. 13.

															[ Footnote 28 ]

															Although the denaturalization statute speaks in terms of
"willful misrepresentation" or "concealment of a material fact,"
this Court has indicated that the concealment, no less than the
misrepresentation, must be willful, and that the misrepresentation
must also relate to a material fact. See Costello v. United
States, 365 U. S. 265 , 365 U. S.
271 -272, n. 3 (1961). Logically, the same principle
should govern the interpretation of this provision of the DPA.

															[ Footnote 29 ]

															One question on the form Chaunt submitted in connection
with his petition for citizenship asked if he had ever "been
arrested or charged with violation of any law of the United States
or State or city ordinance or traffic regulation," and, if so, give
full particulars. To this question, Chaunt answered "no."

															[ Footnote 30 ]

															Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals directly
focused on the distinction between false statements in a visa
application and false statements in an application for citizenship.
The District Court's opinion suggests that it concluded that there
were no willful misrepresentations in petitioner's 1970 application
for citizenship. See 455 F. Supp. at 916-917. The Court of
Appeals characterized the case as involving "a misrepresentation by
nondisclosure." 597 F.2d at 947.

															[ Footnote 31 ]

															Hereafter, references to §§ 2(a) and 2(b), rather than referring
to §§ 2(a) and 2(b) of the DPA, follow the designation of the
definitional provisions in the IRO Constitution, see 62
Stat. 3051-3052, incorporated in § 2(b) of the DPA.

															[ Footnote 32 ]

															Jenkins testified as follows:

															"Q If through investigation or interview you had determined that
[a visa] applicant in fact did serve at a death camp . . . in
occupied Poland as a Ukrainian Guard would you have denied the visa
application?"

															"A Yes, I would."

															"Q And in your expert opinion, would such a person have
qualified as an eligible displaced person?"

															"A No, he would not have."

															"Q I may have asked this question, if I have, permit me to ask
it again, . . . are you aware of any case whatsoever in which an
axis auxiliary who served in a capacity as a camp guard was ever
legally qualified as a displaced person?"

															"A No, I am not. I am reasonably certain that there was no such
case."

															" * * * *" "Q Mr. Jenkins, referring to the last question and answer, would
it have made any difference whatsoever to you as a visa officer if
the person could have been proven to have been a guard, but you
could not prove that he committed an atrocity?"

															"A No."

															"THE COURT: Why? Why?"

															"THE WITNESS: Because, under the Displaced Persons Act and in
the International Refugee Organization constitution, by . . .
definition, such a person could not be a displaced person."

															Record 767-768. On cross-examination, Jenkins was asked:

															"Q Despite the apparent assumption that a guard at a
concentration camp was there voluntarily, a non-German was there
voluntarily, if a non-German guard came to you and said to you that
his service there was involuntary would that guard have been
eligible under the Displaced Persons Act, and would he have been
granted a visa?"

															"A I don't believe so. In the first place ,I can't imagine this
hypothetical situation. And secondly, I think the language of the
Act is so clear that participation or even acquiesce[nce] in really
doesn't leave the vice consul that kind of latitude."

															"THE COURT: . . . What is there about it that would make you
think it was so clear that you had no latitude, if he had,
according to the hypothetical, persuaded you that his service as a
guard was involuntary? How would that differ from involuntary
service in the Waffen SS [Axis combat unit]?"

															"A Because the crime against humanity that is involved in the
concentration camp puts it into a different category. . . ." Id. at 822-823.

															[ Footnote 33 ]

															The District Court felt compelled to impose a voluntariness
requirement because it was concerned that a literal interpretation
of § 2(a) would "bar every Jewish prisoner who survived Treblinka
because each one of them assisted the SS in the operation of the
camp." 455 F. Supp. at 913. The court noted that working prisoners
led arriving prisoners to the lazaret where they were murdered, cut
the hair of the women who were to be executed, or played in the
orchestra at the gate to the camp as part of the Germans' ruse to
persuade new arrivals that the camp was other than what it was. The
court pointed out that such actions could technically be deemed
assistance, and concluded that it would be

															"absurd to deem their conduct 'assistance or acquiescence,'
inasmuch as it was involuntary -- even though the word
'voluntarily' was omitted from the definition." Ibid. In addition, the court noted that Jenkins
testified that visa applicants who had served in Axis combat units
and who could prove that their service was involuntary were found
eligible for visas. Id. at 912. But see n 34, infra. [ Footnote 34 ]

															The solution to the problem perceived by the District Court, see n 33, supra, lies not in "interpreting" the Act to include a
voluntariness requirement that the statute itself does not impose,
but in focusing on whether particular conduct can be considered
assisting in the persecution of civilians. Thus, 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.
As for the District Court's concern about the different treatment
given to visa applicants who had served in Axis combat units who
were found eligible for visas if they could show that they had
served involuntarily, this distinction was made by the Act
itself.

															[ Footnote 35 ]

															The District Court refused to give conclusive weight to Jenkins'
testimony on this issue largely because it felt that Jenkins'
testimony did not recognize the "voluntariness" exception that the
court read into § 2(a). However, Jenkins' testimony was in
accordance with the plain language of the statute. Because the
District Court mistakenly applied the law to the facts of this case
in concluding that petitioner was lawfully admitted into this
country, 455 F. Supp. at 915, we reject its conclusion.

															The dissenting opinion of JUSTICE STEVENS argues that the
Government "expressly disavowed" our interpretation of the DPA, post at 449 U. S. 530 ,
and that the Government "unequivocally accepted" the District
Court's construction of § 2(a), post at 449 U. S. 535 .
Elsewhere, the dissent suggests that the District Court's
construction is "the Government's interpretation of the statute," post at 449 U. S. 536 .
The sole basis for these assertions is a footnote in the
Government's brief in the Court of Appeals which merely stated:
"The United States has no quarrel with [the District
Court's] construction [of § 2(a)] in this case " (emphasis
added). In our judgment, none of the dissent's claims is borne out
by this statement. The suggestion that the Government
"unequivocally accepted" the District Court's interpretation of the
Act is, at best, an exaggeration, and we have found no evidence in
the record or briefs in this case of the Government's "express
disavowal" of our construction of § 2(a). Furthermore, being
neither endowed with psychic powers nor privy to the Government's
deliberations, we cannot join JUSTICE STEVENS, see post at 449 U. S.
535 -536, in speculating about the reasons that the
Government chose not to "quarrel with" the District Court's
interpretation of § 2(a) "in this case."

															As for JUSTICE STEVENS' belief that our interpretation of the
statute is "erroneous," see post at 449 U. S. 533 ,
we simply note that he is unable to point to anything in the
language of the Act that justifies reading into § 2(a) the
"voluntariness" limitation that Congress omitted. Thus, we must
conclude that JUSTICE STEVENS' real quarrel is with Congress, which
drafted the statute. It is not the function of the courts to amend
statutes under the guise of "statutory interpretation." See
Potomac Electric Power Co. v. Director, Office of Workers'
Compensation Programs, ante at 449 U. S. 274 .
Finally, since the term "persecution" does not apply to some of the
tasks performed by concentration camp inmates, see n 34, supra, we
reject the speculation that our decision "may jeopardize the
citizenship of countless survivors of Nazi concentration camps," post at 449 U. S. 530 (STEVENS, J., dissenting).

															[ Footnote 36 ]

															Title 8 U.S.C. § 1429 provides in pertinent part:

															"[N]o person shall be naturalized unless he has been lawfully
admitted to the United States for permanent residence in accordance
with all applicable provisions of this chapter." See also 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a).

															[ Footnote 37 ]

															The same requirement is now contained in 8 U.S.C. § 1181(a),
which provides that

															"no immigrant shall be admitted into the United States unless at
the time of application for admission he (1) has a valid unexpired
immigrant visa. . . ."

															[ Footnote 38 ] See H.R.Rep. No. 1086, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 39 (1961)
(Citizenship is illegally procured if "some statutory requirement
which is a condition precedent to naturalization is absent at the
time the petition [for naturalization is] granted").

															[ Footnote 39 ]

															Courts must consider the facts and circumstances in deciding
whether an applicant satisfies such requirements for naturalization
as good moral character and an understanding of the English
language, American history, and civics. See 8 U.S.C. §§
1423, 1427(d).

															[ Footnote 40 ]

															Our decision makes it unnecessary to resolve the question
whether the Court of Appeals correctly interpreted the materiality
test enunciated in Chaunt. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the judgment.

															I agree with much of the Court's reasoning, as well as with the
result it reaches. I am perplexed, however, by the Court's
reluctance, ante at 449 U. S.
508 -509, to apply the materiality standard of Chaunt
v. United States, 364 U. S. 350 (1960), to petitioner's circumstances. I write separately to
express my understanding that application of Chaunt would
yield no different result here, and to state my belief that a
standard as rigorous as Chaunt's is necessary to protect
the rights of our naturalized citizens.

															In Chaunt, the issue presented was whether failure to
reveal certain prior arrests in response to a question on a
citizenship application form constituted misrepresentation or
concealment Page 449 U. S. 519 of a material fact for purposes of the denaturalization statute.
[ Footnote 2/1 ] Id. at 364 U. S.
351 -352. As construed by Chaunt, the statute
authorizes denaturalization on the basis of an applicant's failure
to disclose suppressed facts which (1) "if known, would have
warranted denial of citizenship," or (2) "might have been useful in
an investigation possibly leading to the discovery of other facts
warranting denial of citizenship." Id. at 364 U. S.
355 .

															The Court says that Chaunt need not be invoked when
denaturalization is premised on deliberate misstatements at the
visa application stage, but does not explain why this is so. I fail
to see any relevant limitation in the Chaunt decision or
the governing statute that bars Chaunt's application to
this case. By its terms, the denaturalization statute at the time
of Chaunt, as now, was not restricted to any single stage
of the citizenship process. [ Footnote
2/2 ] Although, in Chaunt, the nondisclosures arose in
response to a question on a citizenship application form filed some
years after the applicant first arrived in this country, nothing in
the language or import of the opinion suggests that omissions or
false statements should be assessed differently when they are
tendered upon initial entry into this country. If such a
distinction was intended, it has eluded the several courts that
unquestioningly have applied Chaunt's materiality standard
when reviewing alleged distortions in the visa request process. See, e.g., Kassab v. Immigration & Page 449 U. S. 520 Naturalization Service, 364 F.2d 806 (CA6 1966); United States v. Ross, 299 F.2d 650 (CA9 1962); Langhammer v. Hamilton, 295 F.2d 62 (CA1 1961).

															I doubt that the failure of these courts to raise any question
about the relevance of Chaunt was an oversight. It is far
from clear to me that the materiality of facts should vary because
of the time at which they are concealed or misrepresented. Nor do I
see why the events or activities underlying these facts become more
or less material depending upon the country in which they
transpired. [ Footnote 2/3 ] In each
context, the inquiry concerning nondisclosure addresses the same
fundamental issue: did the applicant shield from review facts
material to his eligibility for citizenship?

															In Chaunt, the Court articulated two approaches to
provide guidance and uniformity in such inquiries. The Court today
adopts what it considers a new and minimal definition of
materiality: it announces that a misrepresentation is material "if
disclosure of the true facts would have made the applicant
ineligible for a visa." Ante at 449 U. S. 509 .
This standard bears no small resemblance to the "first test" of Chaunt, for it too deems material those facts "which, if
known, would have warranted denial of" eligibility. 364 U.S. at 364 U. S. 355 .
Because I see no effective difference between the standards, nor
any persuasive grounds for contriving a difference, I would rely
explicitly upon the Chaunt test here and avoid risking Page 449 U. S. 521 the confusion that is likely to be engendered by multiple
standards. [ Footnote 2/4 ]

															Application of Chaunt to the instant record would not
result in any significant departure from the Court's basic
analysis. As the Court notes, ante at 449 U. S. 500 ,
petitioner admitted at trial that he deliberately misrepresented
his wartime activities and whereabouts when communicating with
representatives of the Displaced Persons Commission during the visa
application process. Record 1518-1522. [ Footnote 2/5 ] The expert testimony of former Vice Consul
Jenkins demonstrates convincingly that an applicant who had served
as a concentration camp guard would not have qualified for a
displaced person's visa. [ Footnote
2/6 ] The determination to exclude persons who had assisted in
persecuting civilians was grounded in a clear statutory mandate,
[ Footnote 2/7 ] and uncontroverted
testimony established that Page 449 U. S. 522 the statute was consistently applied in just this fashion
against individuals in petitioner's position. [ Footnote 2/8 ] Under these circumstances, I agree
with the Court that petitioner's true activities, if known, would
certainly have warranted denial of his visa application. Without a
valid visa, petitioner could not have been considered for status as
a United States citizen. Having proved this much by clear and
convincing evidence, the Government has satisfied the first test of Chaunt. This test strikes a careful and necessary balance between the
Government's commitment to supervising the citizenship process and
the naturalized citizen's interest in preserving his status. The
individual seeks to retain his citizenship right to full and equal
status in our national community, a right conferring benefits of
inestimable value upon those who possess it. The freedoms and
opportunities secured by United States citizenship long have been
treasured by persons fortunate enough to be born with them, and are
yearned for by countless less fortunate. Indeed, citizenship has
been described as "man's basic right, for it is nothing less than
the right to have rights." [ Footnote
2/9 ] and the effects of its loss justly have been called "more
serious than a taking of one's property, or Page 449 U. S. 523 the imposition of a fine or other penalty." [ Footnote 2/10 ] Where, as here, the Government
seeks to revoke this right, the Court consistently and forcefully
has held that it may do so only on scrupulously clear justification
and proof. Costello v. United States, 365 U.
S. 265 (1961); Nowak v. United States, 356 U. S. 660 (1958); Knauer v. United States, 328 U.
S. 654 (1946); Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U. S. 665 (1944); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.
S. 118 (1943). Before sustaining any decision to impose
the grave consequences of denaturalization, the Court has regarded
it as its duty "to scrutinize the record with the utmost care,"
[ Footnote 2/11 ] construing "the
facts and the law . . . as far as is reasonably possible in favor
of the citizen." [ Footnote
2/12 ]

															The Chaunt decision is properly attentive to this
long-recognized unique interest in citizenship, and I must join the
Court in not accepting the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, which
would have diluted the materiality standard. The Court of Appeals
reasoned that materiality was established if the nondisclosed facts
would have triggered an inquiry that might have uncovered other
unproved and disqualifying facts. See 597 F.2d 946,
950-951 (CA5 1979). By concluding that the Government has
demonstrated the actual existence of disqualifying facts -- facts
that themselves would have warranted denial of petitioner's
citizenship this Court adheres to a more rigorous standard of
proof. I believe that Chaunt indeed contemplated only this
rigorous standard, and I suspect the Court's reluctance explicitly
to apply it stems from a desire to sidestep the confusion over
whether Chaunt created more than one standard. Chaunt, to be sure, did announce a disjunctive approach
to the inquiry into materiality, but several factors support the
conclusion that, under either "test," the Government's Page 449 U. S. 524 task is the same: it must prove the existence of disqualifying
facts, not simply facts that might lead to hypothesized
disqualifying facts. First, this Court's reasoning before Chaunt contains no suggestion that a naturalized citizen
would be reduced to alien status merely because a thwarted
Government inquiry might have shown him to be unqualified. Instead,
the Court has been willing to approve denaturalization only upon a
clear and convincing showing that the prescribed statutory
conditions of citizenship had never been met. This, it seems to me,
is the clear import of the Court's exhaustive reviews in Nowak
v. United States, 356 U.S. at 356 U. S.
663 -668; Knauer v. United States, 328 U.S. at 328 U. S.
656 -669; Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S.
at 322 U. S.
666 -678; and Schneiderman v. United States, 320
U.S. at 320 U. S.
131 -159. Of course, the Government's ability to
investigate with vigor may be affected adversely by its inability
to discover that certain facts have been suppressed. The standard
announced by the Court of Appeals, however, seems to me to
transform this interest in unhampered investigation into an end in
itself. Application of that court's standard suggests that a
deliberately false answer to any question the Government deems
worth asking may be considered material. I do not believe that such
a weak standard of proof was ever contemplated by this Court's
decisions prior to Chaunt. Instead, I conclude that the Court in Chaunt intended
to follow its earlier cases, and that its "two tests" are simply
two methods by which the existence of ultimate disqualifying facts
might be proved. This reading of Chaunt is consistent with
the actual language of the so-called second test; [ Footnote 2/13 ] it Page 449 U. S. 525 also appears to be the meaning that the dissent in Chaunt believed the Court to have intended. [ Footnote 2/14 ]

															Significantly, this view accords with the policy considerations
informing the Court's decisions in the area of denaturalization. If
naturalization can be revoked years or decades after it is
conferred, on the mere suspicion that certain Page 449 U. S. 526 undisclosed facts might have warranted exclusion, I
fear that the valued rights of citizenship are in danger of
erosion. If the weaker standard were employed, I doubt that the
denaturalization process would remain as careful as it has been in
the past in situations where a citizen's allegedly material
misstatements were closely tied to his expression of political
beliefs or activities implicating the First Amendment. [ Footnote 2/15 ] Citizenship determinations
continue to involve judgments about a person's "good moral
character" or his attachment "to the principles of the
Constitution," see 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a), and the judiciary's
task remains the difficult one of balancing a need to safeguard
admission to United States citizenship, in accord with the will of
Congress, against a citizen's right to feel secure in the exercise
of his constitutional freedoms. By concluding that an impaired
investigation may justify the loss of these freedoms, the Court of
Appeals threatens to leave the naturalized citizen with "nothing
more than citizenship in attenuated, if not suspended, animation."
[ Footnote 2/16 ] The Court seems
to reject this approach, and follows the essential teaching of Chaunt. I regret only its unwillingness to say so.

															[ Footnote 2/1 ]

															The statute is § 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
of 1952, 66 Stat. 260, as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a). Its relevant
provisions are quoted ante at 449 U. S. 493 ,
n. 1.

															[ Footnote 2/2 ]

															Except for the prohibition against "illegally procured"
citizenship, added in 1961 by Pub.L. 87-301, § 18(a), 75 Stat. 656,
the statute today is unchanged from the version considered in Chaunt. Now, as then, it authorizes the initiation of
denaturalization proceedings should the Government discover that
the order admitting a person to citizenship was "procured by
concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation." In
accord with the Court's prior construction of this phrase, both the
concealment and the misrepresentation must be willful, and each
must also relate to a material fact. Ante at 449 U. S.
507 -508, n. 28, citing Costello v. United
States, 365 U. S. 265 , 365 U. S.
271 -272, n. 3 (1961).

															[ Footnote 2/3 ]

															This discussion of materiality relates only to proceedings
brought by the Government to denaturalize a United States citizen.
I do not mean to suggest that, for purposes of attaining
citizenship, a misrepresentation must be analyzed in an identical
fashion. The immigration law historically has afforded greater
protections to persons already admitted to citizenship than to
those seeking to obtain its privileges and benefits. This choice,
however, reflects a judgment that the weighty interest in
citizenship should be neither casually conferred nor lightly
revoked. See Berenyi v. District Director, 385 U.
S. 630 , 385 U. S.
636 -637 (1967). In view of petitioner's status as a
United States citizen, it is unnecessary to consider here the
question of materiality at the naturalization stage.

															[ Footnote 2/4 ]

															Confusion to some extent is already present. We granted
certiorari in this case primarily to resolve conflicting
interpretations of the Chaunt materiality standard. Compare United States v. Riela, 337 F.2d 986 (CA3 1964), and United States v. Rossi, 299 F.2d 650 (CA9 1962), with Kassab v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 364 F.2d 806 (CA6 1966), and Lanhammer v. Hamilton, 295
F.2d 642 (CA1 1961).

															[ Footnote 2/5 ]

															JUSTICE WHITE's observation in dissent, post at 449 U. S. 529 ,
and n. 10, is not to the contrary. The District Court found a lack
of willfulness with respect to the nondisclosure on petitioner's
citizenship application form, completed in 1969. As the Court
correctly observes, ante at 449 U. S. 507 ,
n. 26, petitioner's misrepresentations at the visa application
stage were plainly willful.

															[ Footnote 2/6 ]

															Record 766-768, 822-823, substantially reproduced ante at 449 U. S.
510 -511, n. 31. Jenkins further testified at length
that, based on his knowledge and experience, "involuntary" guard
service in Nazi concentration camps was unknown and virtually
inconceivable. Record 754-758, 807-808, 823-824. While I find much
of this testimony persuasive, I do not need to rely upon it here,
since petitioner's ineligibility for a visa is independently
established. See nn. 449
U.S. 490 fn2/7|>7 and 449
U.S. 490 fn2/8|>8, infra. [ Footnote 2/7 ]

															The Displaced Persons Act, 62 Stat. 1009, enabled refugees
driven from their homelands during and after World War II to
emigrate to the United States without regard to traditional
immigration quotas. Eligibility was extended consistent with
requirements set forth in Annex I to the Constitution of the
International Refugee Organization of the United Nations. This
excluded the following displaced persons from its ambit of
concern:

															"1. War criminals, quislings and traitors."

															"2. Any other persons who can be shown:"

															"( a ) to have assisted the enemy in persecuting civil
populations of countries, Members of the United Nations; or"

															"( b ) to have voluntarily assisted the enemy forces
since the outbreak of the second world war in their operations
against the United Nations."

															Annex I, Part II, 62 Stat. 3051-3052.

															[ Footnote 2/8 ]

															Record 766-768. See also id. at 790 (concentration camp
guards themselves understood that admission of their former status,
without more, was enough to render them ineligible).

															[ Footnote 2/9 ] Perez v. Brownell, 356 U. S. 44 , 356 U. S. 64 (1958) (Warren, C.J., dissenting).

															[ Footnote 2/10 ] Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.
S. 118 , 320 U. S. 122 (1943).

															[ Footnote 2/11 ] Nowak v. United States, 356 U.
S. 660 , 356 U. S. 663 (1958).

															[ Footnote 2/12 ] Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. at 320 U. S.
122 .

															[ Footnote 2/13 ]

															Under the "second test" in Chaunt, the Government is
required to prove with respect to suppressed facts

															"that their disclosure might have been useful in an
investigation possibly leading to the discovery of other facts
warranting denial of citizenship."

															364 U.S. at 364 U. S. 355 .
The Court of Appeals in effect construes the word "possibly" to
modify the entire following phrase. I believe the sounder
construction is that adopted by the District Court, see 455 F.
Supp. 893 , 915-916 (SD Fla.1978), whereby the word "possibly"
modifies only the first part of the ensuing phrase. Because what
would "possibly" be discovered is not "facts which might warrant denial of citizenship" but " other facts warranting denial of citizenship" (emphasis supplied), the
"second test" simply asks whether knowledge of the suppressed facts
could have enabled the Government to reach the ultimate
disqualifying facts whose existence is now known. See also 364 U.S. at 364 U. S. 353 (second test stated as whether "disclosure of the true facts might
have led to the discovery of other facts which would justify denial
of citizenship").

															[ Footnote 2/14 ]

															The dissent in Chaunt proposed its own standard, which
it apparently believed was at odds with what the Court had
adopted:

															"The test is not whether the truthful answer in itself, or the
facts discovered through an investigation prompted by that answer,
would have justified a denial of citizenship. It is whether the
falsification, by misleading the examining officer, forestalled an
investigation which might have resulted in the defeat of
petitioner's application for naturalization." Id. at 364 U. S. 357 .
(Emphasis in original.)

															The dissent also voiced concern that the Court, by imposing such
a heavy burden of proof on the Government in denaturalization
proceedings, in effect would invite dishonesty from future
applicants for citizenship. Ibid. JUSTICE WHITE, in
dissent today, expresses the same concern. Post at 449 U. S. 529 .
It, of course, is never easy to demonstrate the existence of
statements or events that occurred long ago. Records and witnesses
disappear, memories fade, and even the actor's personal knowledge
becomes less reliable. While recognizing the arduous nature of the
task, the Court nonetheless has insisted that the Government meet a
very high standard of proof in denaturalization proceedings. Chaunt's rigorous definition of materiality, it is true,
may occasionally benefit an applicant who conceals disqualifying
information. Yet, practically and constitutionally, naturalized
citizens, as a class, are not less trustworthy or reliable than the
native-born. The procedural protection of the high standard of
proof is necessary to assure the naturalized citizen his right,
equally with the native-born, to enjoy the benefits of citizenship
in confidence and without fear.

															[ Footnote 2/15 ]

															Chaunt's prior activities involved distributing handbills and
speaking in a public park, activities that merit a high degree of
First Amendment protection. See also Schneiderman v. United
States, supra, (membership in Communist Party in the United
States); Nowak v. United States, supra (same) .

															[ Footnote 2/16 ] Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. at 320 U. S. 166 (Rutledge, J., concurring).

															JUSTICE WHITE, dissenting.

															The primary issue presented in the petition for certiorari was
whether the Court of Appeals had properly interpreted the test
articulated in Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.
S. 350 (1960), for determining whether an individual
procured his citizenship by concealment or misrepresentation of a
"material" fact. In Chaunt, the Government sought to
revoke an Page 449 U. S. 527 individual's citizenship because he had not disclosed certain
facts in his application for citizenship. [ Footnote 3/1 ] Although Chaunt did not address
the standard of materiality with respect to visa applications, the
parties before this Court have assumed that the Chaunt test should be used to determine whether petitioner concealed
material facts when he applied for a visa. [ Footnote 3/2 ]

															Recognizing that the relevance of Chaunt to visa
applications may be problematic, the majority turns to a wholly
separate ground to decide this case, resting its decision on its
interpretation of "adopted" § 2(a) of the Displaced Persons Act
( see ante at 449 U. S. 510 ,
n. 31). I am reluctant to resolve the issue of whether Chaunt extends to visa applications, since the parties
have neither briefed nor argued the point. However, I am equally
reluctant to adopt the course chosen by the majority, for the
language of § 2(a) is not entirely unambiguous, [ Footnote 3/3 ] and the parties have not addressed
the proper interpretation of the statute. [ Footnote 3/4 ] Under these circumstances, I would Page 449 U. S. 528 simply clarify the Chaunt materiality test and then
remand to the Court of Appeals to review the District Court's
findings on petitioner's concealment at the time he applied for
citizenship.

															In Chaunt, the Court stated that, to prove
misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact, the Government
must prove by clear and convincing evidence

															"either (1) that facts were suppressed which, if known, would
have warranted denial of citizenship or (2) that their disclosure
might have been useful in an investigation possibly leading to the
discovery of other facts warranting denial of citizenship."

															364 U.S. at 364 U. S. 355 .
[ Footnote 3/5 ] Under the District
Court's interpretation of the second Chaunt test and that
urged by petitioner, the Government would be required to prove that
an investigation prompted by a complete, truthful response would have revealed facts justifying denial of
citizenship. [ Footnote 3/6 ] The
Court of Appeals and the Government contend that, under the second Chaunt test, the Government must prove only that such an
investigation might have led to the discovery of facts
justifying denial of citizenship. [ Footnote 3/7 ] In my opinion, the latter interpretation
is correct. [ Footnote 3/8 ] Page 449 U. S. 529 If the District Court's interpretation were adopted, the
Government would bear the heavy, and in many cases impossible,
burden of proving the true facts that existed many years prior to
the time the defendant applied for citizenship, whether it
proceeded under the first or the second Chaunt test. This
definition of "materiality," by greatly improving the odds that
concealment would be successful, would encourage applicants to
withhold information, since the Government would often be unable to
meet its burden by the time the concealment was discovered.

															In this case, the Government alleged that, when petitioner
filled out his application for citizenship, he willfully concealed
that he had served as an armed guard for the Germans during the
war. Petitioner failed to disclose this information, although the
application form required him to list his past or present
membership in any organization in the United States or elsewhere,
including foreign military service. Although the Government
produced evidence to support a finding of materiality under its
interpretation of the second Chaunt test, [ Footnote 3/9 ] the District Court concluded that
petitioner's service as an armed guard for the Germans was
immaterial under the District Court's interpretation of Chaunt. It also found that the nondisclosure was not
willful. [ Footnote 3/10 ] Page 449 U. S. 530 The Court of Appeals failed to review this portion of the
District Court's opinion. Instead, it focused solely on whether
petitioner had willfully concealed or misrepresented material facts
when he applied for a visa. Therefore, I would vacate the judgment
of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court to review
the District Court's application of the Chaunt test to
petitioner's concealment at the time he applied for citizenship.
[ Footnote 3/11 ]

															[ Footnote 3/1 ]

															Section 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8
U.S.C. § 1451(a), quoted in pertinent part in the majority opinion, ante at 449 U. S. 493 ,
n. 1, directs the Government to seek revocation of citizenship that
was "procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful
misrepresentation."

															[ Footnote 3/2 ]

															Similarly, both the District Court and the Court of Appeals
assumed that the Chaunt materiality test should be applied
to the Government's claim that petitioner concealed material
information when he applied for a visa.

															[ Footnote 3/3 ]

															The majority asserts that the plain language of the statute
compels the conclusion that § 2(a) excluded all those who assisted
the enemy in persecuting civil populations, even those who
involuntarily assisted the enemy. The majority explains in a
footnote that, under § 2(a), one must focus on whether the
individual assisted the enemy in persecuting civil populations, ante at 449 U. S.
512 -513, n. 34, rather than focusing on voluntariness.
Yet one could argue that the words "assist" and "persecute" suggest
that § 2(a) would not apply to an individual whose actions were
truly coerced.

															[ Footnote 3/4 ]

															The Government did not contend that § 2(a) of the Displaced
Persons Act should be interpreted as excluding persons who involuntarily assisted the enemy in persecuting civil
populations. Rather, it argued that the finding that petitioner had
"involuntarily" served as a concentration camp guard was clearly
erroneous. It therefore urged us to affirm on the ground that the
first Chaunt test had been satisfied.

															[ Footnote 3/5 ]

															In Chaunt, the Court also observed that complete,
honest replies to all relevant questions are essential not only
because concealed facts might, in and of themselves, justify denial
of citizenship, but also because "disclosure of the true facts
might have led to the discovery of other facts which would justify
denial of citizenship." 364 U.S. at 364 U. S.
352 -353.

															[ Footnote 3/6 ] 455 F.
Supp. 893 , 915-916 (SD Fla.1978).

															[ Footnote 3/7 ]

															597 F.2d 946, 951 (CA5 1979).

															[ Footnote 3/8 ]

															The Government should be required to prove that an investigation
would have occurred if a truthful response had been given, and that
the investigation might have uncovered facts justifying denial of
citizenship. The defendant could rebut the Government's showing
that the investigation might have led to the discovery of facts
justifying denial of citizenship by establishing that the
underlying facts would not have justified denial of
citizenship.

															[ Footnote 3/9 ]

															The naturalization examiner who processed petitioner's
application testified at trial that, if petitioner had disclosed
his service as an armed guard with the Germans during the war, the
examiner would not have made any recommendation regarding
petitioner's application for citizenship until an investigation had
been conducted. He also testified that, if the investigation had
disclosed that petitioner had physically hurt Jewish prisoners
while serving as a guard at Treblinka, the examiner would have
recommended that petitioner's application for citizenship be
denied, either on the ground that petitioner lacked good moral
character or on the ground that he had not been properly admitted
into the United States. Waterbury, Conn., Trial Transcript
147-148.

															[ Footnote 3/10 ]

															The District Court decided that petitioner's failure to disclose
that he had served as an armed guard for the Germans was not
willful, since "there would be strong reason in [petitioner's] mind
to view himself as a prisoner of war." 455 F. Supp. at 917.

															[ Footnote 3/11 ]

															I agree with the majority's view that a district court does not
have discretion to weigh equitable considerations in determining
whether citizenship should be revoked.

															JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.

															The story of this litigation is depressing. The Government
failed to prove its right to relief on any of several theories
advanced in the District Court. The Court of Appeals reversed on an
untenable ground. Today, this Court affirms on a theory that no
litigant argued, that the Government expressly disavowed, and that
may jeopardize the citizenship of countless survivors of Nazi
concentration camps.

															The seven-count complaint filed by the Government in the
District Court prayed for a revocation of petitioner's citizenship
on four different theories: (1) that his entry visa was invalid
because he had misstated his birthplace and place of residence, and
therefore he had never been lawfully admitted to the United States;
(2) that he committed war crimes or atrocities, and therefore was
not eligible for admission as a displaced person; (3) that he made
material misstatements on his application for citizenship in 1970;
and (4) that he was not a person of good moral character when he
received his American citizenship. After a long trial, the District
Court concluded that the Government had failed to prove its
case.

															The trial judge was apparently convinced that the suggestive
identification procedures endorsed by the prosecution Page 449 U. S. 531 had resulted in a misidentification of petitioner; that
petitioner had not performed the atrocious acts witnessed by the
survivors of Treblinka who testified; [ Footnote 4/1 ] 1 that Vice Consul Jenkins' testimony was
not entirely reliable; [ Footnote
4/2 ] and that, for the most part, petitioner was a truthful
witness. 455 F.
Supp. 893 , 906-909. The District Judge specifically found that
petitioner's visa was valid, and that petitioner therefore lawfully
entered the United States, id. at 916; that his service at
Treblinka was involuntary, id. at 914; that he made no
misstatements in his application for citizenship, id. at
917; and that he was a person of good moral character. Ibid. Page 449 U. S. 532 As an alternative basis for decision, the District Court
concluded that, because the Government had failed to prove that
petitioner committed any atrocities at Treblinka, his record as a
responsible and law-abiding resident of the United States for 29
years provided an equitable ground for refusing to revoke his
citizenship. Id. at 918-920.

															The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the District Court
committed two errors of law. 597 F.2d 946. First, the Court of
Appeals held that the District Court, in assessing the materiality
of the misstatement in petitioner's 1949 visa application, had
misapplied this Court's decision in Chaunt v. United
States, 364 U. S. 350 ;
second, the Court of Appeals rejected the equitable basis for the
District Court's judgment. The Court of Appeals did not, however,
disturb any of the District Court's findings of fact.

															Today the Court declines to endorse the Court of Appeals' first
rationale. Because the Chaunt test was formulated in the
context of applications for citizenship, and because the only
misstatements here were made on petitioner's visa application,
[ Footnote 4/3 ] the Court
acknowledges that the Chaunt test is not Page 449 U. S. 533 automatically applicable. The Court does not reach the question
of the applicability of Chaunt in the visa context,
however, because it concludes that, at the very least, a
misrepresentation is material if disclosure of the true facts would
have rendered the applicant ineligible for a visa. Because the
Court holds as a matter of law that petitioner's service as a guard
at Treblinka, whether or not voluntary, made him ineligible for a
visa, petitioner was not legally admitted to the country, and hence
was not entitled to citizenship.

															I cannot accept the view that any citizen's past involuntary
conduct can provide the basis for stripping him of his American
citizenship. The Court's contrary holding today rests entirely on
its construction of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (DPA).
Although the Court purports to consider the materiality of
petitioner's misstatements, the Court's construction of the DPA
renders those misstatements entirely irrelevant to the decision of
this case. Every person who entered the United States pursuant to
the authority granted by that statute, who subsequently acquired
American citizenship, and who can be shown "to have assisted the
enemy in persecuting civil populations" -- even under the most
severe duress -- has no right to retain his or her citizenship. I
believe that the Court's construction of the DPA is erroneous, and
that the Court of Appeals misapplied the Chaunt test. I Section 2(a) of the DPA was "adopted" from the Constitution of
the International Refugee Organization ( see ante at 449 U. S. 510 ,
n. 31), which described in Part II of Annex I "Persons who will not
be [considered as displaced persons]." The second listing had two
classifications:

															"2. Any other persons who can be shown:"

															"( a ) to have assisted the enemy in persecuting civil
populations of countries, Members of the United Nations; or " Page 449 U. S. 534 "( b ) to have voluntarily assisted the enemy forces
since the outbreak of the second world war in their operations
against the United Nations."

															The District Court recognized that the section dealing with
assisting enemy forces contained the word "voluntarily," while the
section dealing with persecuting enemy populations did not. The
District Court refused to construe the statute to bar relief to any
person who assisted the enemy, whether voluntarily or not, however,
because such a construction would have excluded the Jewish
prisoners who assisted the SS in the operation of the concentration
camp. 455 F. Supp. at 913. These prisoners performed such tasks as
cutting the hair of female prisoners prior to their execution and
performing in a camp orchestra as a ruse to conceal the true nature
of the camp. I agree without hesitation with the District Court's
conclusion that such prisoners did not perform their duties
voluntarily and that such prisoners should not be considered
excludable under the DPA. [ Footnote
4/4 ] The Court resolves the dilemma perceived by the District
Court by concluding that prisoners who did no more than cut the
hair of female inmates before they were executed could not be
considered to be assisting the enemy in persecuting civilian populations. See ante at 449 U. S.
512 -513, n. 34. Thus the Court would give the word
"persecution" some not yet defined specially limited reading. In my
opinion, the term "persecution" clearly applies to such conduct;
indeed, it probably encompasses almost every aspect of life or
death in a concentration camp.

															The Court's resolution of this issue is particularly
unpersuasive Page 449 U. S. 535 when applied to the "kapos," the Jewish prisoners who supervised
the Jewish workers at the camp. According to witnesses who survived
Treblinka, the kapos were commanded by the SS to administer
beatings to the prisoners, and they did so with just enough force
to make the beating appear realistic, yet avoid injury to the
prisoner. Record 293-295, 300-302 (Kohn), 237 (Turowski). [ Footnote 4/5 ] Even if we assume that the
kapos were completely successful in deceiving the SS guards and
that the beatings caused no injury to other inmates, I believe
their conduct would have to be characterized as assisting in the
persecution of other prisoners. [ Footnote 4/6 ] In my view, the reason that such conduct
should not make the kapos ineligible for citizenship is that it
surely was not voluntary. The fact that the Court's interpretation
of the DPA would exclude a group whose actions were uniformly
defended by survivors of Treblinka, id. at 23239
(Turowski), 300 (Kohn), 1157-1159 (Epstein), merely underscores the
strained reading the Court has given the statute. [ Footnote 4/7 ]

															The Government was apparently persuaded by the force of the
District Court's reasoning. In the Court of Appeals, the Government
unequivocally accepted the District Court's Page 449 U. S. 536 view that § 2(a) should be construed to read "persons who can be
shown to have voluntarily assisted the enemy." [ Footnote 4/8 ] The Government did not
retreat from that concession before this Court. [ Footnote 4/9 ] The reasons for agreeing with the
Government's interpretation of the statute are compelling. II If the DPA is correctly construed, petitioner is entitled to
retain his citizenship unless the Government proved that he made a
material misstatement in his application for citizenship in 1970 or
that he was ineligible for citizenship in 1970. Given the District
Court's findings that he made no willful misstatement in 1970 and
that he had not committed any crimes because his service at
Treblinka was involuntary, the challenge to his citizenship rests
entirely on the claim that he was not lawfully admitted to the
United States in 1949 because he made material misstatements in his
visa application. Even if the Chaunt test applies equally
to visa applications and citizenship applications, I would hold
that the Government failed to satisfy its burden under what I
believe to be the proper interpretation of that test.

															The Court and the parties seem to assume that the Chaunt test contains only two components: (1) whether a
truthful answer might have or would have triggered an
investigation, and (2) whether such an investigation might have or
would Page 449 U. S. 537 have revealed a disqualifying circumstance. Under this
characterization of the Chaunt test, the only dispute is
what probability is required with respect to each of the two
components. There are really three inquiries, however: (1) whether
a truthful answer would have led to an investigation, (2) whether a
disqualifying circumstance actually existed, and (3) whether it
would have been discovered by the investigation. Regardless of
whether the misstatement was made on an application for a visa or
for citizenship, in my opinion, the proper analysis should focus on
the first and second components, and attach little or no weight to
the third. Unless the Government can prove the existence of a
circumstance that would have disqualified the applicant, I do not
believe that citizenship should be revoked on the basis of
speculation about what might have been discovered if an
investigation had been initiated. But if the Government can
establish the existence of a disqualifying fact, I would consider a
willful misstatement material if it were more probable than not
that a truthful answer would have prompted more inquiry. Thus, I
would presume that an investigation, if begun at the time that the
misstatement was made, would have been successful in finding
whatever the Government is now able to prove. But if the Government
is not able to prove the existence of facts that would have made
the resident alien ineligible for citizenship at the time he
executed his application, I would not denaturalize him on the basis
of speculation about what might have been true years ago.

															The Government in this case failed to prove that petitioner
materially misrepresented facts on his citizenship application.
Because I do not believe that "adopted" § 2(a) of the DPA applies
to persons whose assistance in the persecution of civilian
populations was involuntary, and because the District Court found
that petitioner's service was not voluntary, it necessarily follows
that the Government failed to prove the existence of a
disqualifying circumstance with respect to petitioner's Page 449 U. S. 538 visa application. [ Footnote
4/10 ] The misstatements in that application were therefore not
material under a proper application of Chaunt. The gruesome facts recited in this record create what Justice
Holmes described as a sort of "hydraulic pressure" that tends to
distort our judgment. Perhaps my refusal to acquiesce in the
conclusion reached by highly respected colleagues is attributable
in part to an overreaction to that pressure. Even after recognizing
and discounting that factor, however, I remain firmly convinced
that the Court has committed the profoundest sort of error by
venturing into the unknown to find a basis for affirming the
judgment of the Court of Appeals. That human suffering will be a
consequence of today's venture is certainly predictable; that any
suffering will be allayed or avoided is, at best, doubtful.

															I respectfully dissent.

															[ Footnote 4/1 ]

															The District Judge's opinion contains a suggestion that the
witnesses' identification of petitioner may have been a case of
mistaken identity, inasmuch as petitioner resembled another guard
who had a position of greater authority. See 455 F.
Supp. 893 , 908.

															[ Footnote 4/2 ]

															In view of the extensive references to Jenkins in the Court's
opinion, some of the District Court's observations should be
quoted:

															"Unfortunately, and inexplicably, the Government did not find
the Vice-Consul who approved defendant's application."

															" * * * *" "Jenkins' testimony about the structure of the death camp
organization was hardly expert, and conflicts consistently with
other evidence presented at the trial. For example, he testified
that the Ukrainian guards had the same uniforms as the SS, with
only slightly different insignia. However, the unanimous testimony
was the Germans wore their usual gray-green uniforms, but the
prisoner-guards didn't. He testified that the camp guards could get
leave and get away from the camp, and could transfer. The testimony
was clear that they could not take leave (and go to Berlin, as
Jenkins opined), but could only get a two-to-four-hour pass to
visit a small village a couple of miles away."

															" * * * *" "Jenkins also would have considered the kapos as excludable
because they assisted the Germans. This is totally contrary to the
reaction of every witness who survived Treblinka; each of the
Israeli witnesses testified the kapos did only what they had to do,
and the witnesses were quite indignant when asked if they had ever
testified against the kapos. The witnesses replied that there was
no reason to do so. In addition, Jenkins speculated that the kapos
were probably shot in 1945 during a period of retaliation, but the
testimony was to the contrary." Id. at 911-913.

															[ Footnote 4/3 ]

															In Count 4 of its complaint, the Government alleged that
petitioner did not truthfully answer the question on his
citizenship application whether he had ever committed a crime.
Having found that his service in Treblinka was not voluntary, the
District Court concluded that petitioner's negative answer was
truthful. In Count 5 of its complaint (as amended at a pretrial
conference), the Government alleged that petitioner had a duty to
disclose his guard service at Treblinka in answer to the following
question:

															"7. List your present and past membership in every organization,
association, fund, foundation, party, club, society, or similar
group in the United States and in any other place, and your foreign
military service."

															The District Court concluded that, because petitioner regarded
himself as a prisoner of war, and because he had listed his Russian
military service, this omission could not be considered willful. See id. at 917. That conclusion was certainly permissible;
indeed it is arguable that the Treblinka guard service was neither
the sort of "membership" in a club or organization nor the sort of
"military service" that the question contemplated.

															[ Footnote 4/4 ]

															One particular squad of Jewish prisoners was responsible for
undressing the aged and infirm prisoners and leading them to the
lazaret, the eternally burning pit, where they were shot. Record
287 (Kohn). One of the prisoners who worked in the camp stated when
asked whether this squad "assist[ed] in bringing [prisoners] to
their death": "We automatically assisted, all of us, but . . . it
was under the fear and terror." Id. at 293 (Kohn).

															[ Footnote 4/5 ]

															Two of the witnesses, Czarny and Boraks, testified that they did
not recall or hear of any kapos beating prisoners, id. at
551, 686, and one witness, Epstein, did not see or hear of beatings
inflicted by kapos. Id. at 1159.

															[ Footnote 4/6 ]

															Moreover, the Court's distinction between the kapos and other
Jewish workers, on the one hand and the Ukranian guards, on the
other, is based in large part on such factors as the issuance of a
uniform and weapons, the receipt of a stipend, and the privilege of
being allowed to leave the camp and visit a nearby village. These
supposedly distinguishing factors are essentially unrelated to the
persecution of the victims of the concentration camp.

															[ Footnote 4/7 ]

															We also note that Vice Consul Jenkins, upon whose testimony the
Court heavily relies, indicated that he would have considered kapos
to be ineligible under the DPA if they could be proved to be
"internal camp inmate collaborators." Id. at 828.

															[ Footnote 4/8 ]

															Emphasis added. Footnote 11 on p. 17 of the Government's brief
in the Court of Appeals states:

															"The district court held that, in Section 2(a), 'persons who can
be shown to have assisted the enemy' should be construed to read
'persons who can be shown to have voluntarily assisted the enemy.'
455 F. Supp. at 913. The United States has no quarrel with such a
construction in this case."

															[ Footnote 4/9 ]

															Inasmuch as the Attorney General of the United States argued
this case himself, presumably the decision not to question the
District Court's construction of the statute was reached only after
the matter had been reviewed with the utmost care.

															[ Footnote 4/10 ]

															Under my interpretation of the Chaunt test, the
Government should not prevail on the speculation that it might have
been able to uncover evidence that petitioner committed war crimes
while at Treblinka. Similarly, I would hold that the District
Court's findings with respect to willfulness of alleged
misstatements on petitioner's citizenship application were not
clearly erroneous. See 449
U.S. 490 fn4/2|>n. 2, supra. I surely would not rest
decision in this Court on a de novo evaluation of the
testimony of the witness Jenkins, rather than the findings of the
District Court.