CHICAGO — A former Bosnian-Serb para-military police officer was deported this week for fraudulently entering the U.S. and lying to U.S. immigration officials about his military service during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995.
Janko Branko Jankovic, 50, a former resident of Milwaukee, arrived in Sarajevo Wednesday night via commercial aircraft under escort by officers with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO); he was turned over to local authorities.
A native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jankovic fraudulently entered the United States in 2003 and became a U.S. permanent resident in 2005. In 2009, ICE’s Human Rights Violator and War Crimes Center identified Jankovic as a human rights violator suspect.
On June 20, 2014, after extensive litigation led by the ICE Office of the Chief Counsel for Chicago, a federal immigration judge ordered Jankovic deported to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both the Board of Immigration Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denied his appeals of the removal order. Jankovic was arrested at his residence Jan. 19, 2016, and he remained in ICE custody until his deportation this week. On Feb. 3, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denied his request for a stay of deportation.
An investigation by HSI Milwaukee determined that Jankovic failed to disclose to U.S. immigration officials his extensive service in a para-military police formation under the command of the armed forces of the Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War.
Jankovic’s removal is the culmination of a long-term effort by the following domestic and overseas ICE programs: HSI, ERO, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, the Office of International Affairs, and the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center in Washington, D.C
