Former Nazi death squad member Helmut Oberlander has moved one step closer to being expelled from Canada.
Last November, his lawyers asked the Immigration and Refugee Board to dismiss his case on the grounds his citizenship was never expunged and the immigration division lacks jurisdiction to issue a removal order.
That application was dismissed by an arbitrator on Tuesday, according to files provided to Global News.
“The case can now proceed to an admissibility hearing before the ID of the IRB to determine whether Mr. Oberlander is inadmissible and should be removed from Canada,” a government spokesperson told Global News in an email.
“The case will be scheduled in due course.”
Oberlander was born in Ukraine before becoming a German citizen during the Second World War.
He arrived in Canada in 1955 before becoming a citizen in 1960.
The federal government first began to look into expelling Oberlander in 1995.
Oberlander was a translator for Nazi death squads and later as an infantryman in the German army, according to 2018 court documents.
In 2008, he was officially stripped of his citizenship and has been fighting legal battles against deportation ever since.
In December, Canada’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal to restore his citizenship that he obtained in 1960.
Oberlander claims he was forced to join one of the Nazis’ Einsatzkommando mobile killing squads at the age of 17 and did not take part in any atrocities.
—With files from The Canadian Press