The US is seeking to deport at least 150 Bosnians suspected of commiting war crimes and "ethnic cleansing" during the Yugoslavian war, the New York Times reported.
Immigration officials said they have identified 300 immigrants who are believed to have concealed involvement in war times atrocities.
Moves have been made to identify suspects, including an appeal broadcast to Bosnians around the world in February, urging witnesses to come forward with any information about war crimes.
Bosnians should be confident that “justice can be served in the United States despite the fact that many years have gone by and that the conduct occurred overseas, far away,” Kathleen O’Connor, a human rights prosecutor at the Justice Department, said in a message translated into Bosnian on the government-financed Voice of America network.
“The more we dig, the more documents we find,” said Michael MacQueen, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement historian who previously investigated Nazi suspects in the United States before turning his focus to the Bosnian war. The accused Bosnians, many of them former soldiers, include a football coach in Virginia, a metal worker in Ohio and four hotel casino workers in Las Vegas.
“The idea that the people who did all this damage in Bosnia should have a free pass and a new shot at life is just obscene to me,” said Mr MacQueen.
Bosnian Muslims have said it was "painful" to have to live alongside war criminals.
“There’s been a lot of covering up of what happened in Bosnia, and a lot of these people who were involved are still walking around,” Hamdija Custovic, who leads the Congress of North American Bosniaks said. “Whatever has been done to find these people is not enough. It’s tragic.”