Indian-origin man’s citizenship revoked in US as he created new identity and became citizen in 2005, a decade after he was asked to leave.
The Donald Trump administration busted a major scam involving identity change to stay in the country by an Indian-origin man. Meet Gurdev Singh Sohal, also known as Dev Singh, also known as Boota Singh Sundu — the man goes by various identities since he was ordered to be deported in 1994. The administration now revealed that instead of leaving the country, Singh changed his identity and got citizenship in 2005. The name Dev Singh had an exclusion order and his pushed that identity to oblivion to become Gurdev Sohal. He did not disclose his prior immigration history under the Dev Singh identity in any of his immigration applications or proceedings when he naturalized.
Fingerprints caught his lies in 2020
Expert analysis in February 2020 confirmed that the fingerprints submitted under both identities came from the same individual. The analysis was only made possible after DHS digitized the paper fingerprint submission documents from older immigration files, Justice department documents revealed. “If you lie to the government or hide your identity so that you can naturalize, this Administration will find you and strip you of your fraudulently acquired US citizenship.” said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. The DoJ filed a civil denaturalization complaint against Sohl and said he illegally procured his US citizenship because he was never lawfully admitted for permanent residence. The lies he told throughout his naturalization process rendered him unable to show the requisite good moral character to naturalize, the document said. A third count charged Sohal with procuring his naturalization by concealment or willful misrepresentation of his prior identity and immigration proceedings.
