Neeraj Sharma became a US citizen in 2017. Two years later, he was arrested for visa fraud and naturalization fraud.
50-year-old Neeraj Sharma is one of the 17 American citizens who are set to lose their citizenship because of their crime. The Department of Justice announced on Monday that it filed denaturalization actions against these 17 individuals who are accused of serious offences. Only US citizens can be denaturalized, visa holders can’t be. Birthright citizens cannot also be denaturalized. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a naturalized U.S. citizen’s citizenship may be revoked, and certificate of naturalization canceled, if the naturalization was illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.Neeraj Sharma, an Indian-American, was both the owner and chief executive officer of Magnavision LLC, a staffing company located in New Jersey. Sharma used to recruit workers on H-1B visas but he never had any job for them. He filed 11 H-1B visa petitions and each of them included false representations that the visa beneficiaries would be employed with a particular global financial institution. The petitions also included letters on official corporate letterhead with forged signatures of the executives.In 2017, Sharma applied for naturalization, a process to become a US citizen after living in the US for the required number of years as a permanent resident (Green Card holder). During the naturalization process, Sharma falsely asserted that he had never: (a) committed a crime or offense for which he was not arrested; (b) given any US Government officials any information or documentation that was false or misleading; and (c) lied to any US Government official to gain immigration benefits.Based on these material falsehoods, USCIS approved his application, and Sharma became a US citizen in December 2017.In 2019, he was arrested and charged with one count of visa fraud and one count of naturalization fraud. The complainant said Sharma himself was a contracted business analyst at the bank where he promised jobs.“American citizenship is a privilege, and it must be earned honestly. If you come here break our laws, and lie in your immigration proceedings, you forfeit that privilege,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the new cases of denaturalization. “DHS will not stand idly by while Americans are harmed by criminals including sex offenders, perpetrators of fraud, and drug traffickers who have exploited our generosity and gamed our immigration system. We will continue to use every lawful avenue to denaturalize and remove aliens.”
