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Indian-origin man faces denaturalization over immigration and identity fraud
U.S. Justice Department has filed a civil complaint alleging Gurdev Singh Sohal concealed deportation order and false identity.
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Pranavi Sharma - Thu, 25, Sep 2025
- 01:26 EDT
- 369
Representative image / Pexels
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil denaturalization complaint against an Indian-origin man who allegedly obtained American citizenship through identity fraud. The complaint, filed on Sept. 24, names Gurdev Singh Sohal, also known as Dev Singh and Boota Singh Sundu, who became a U.S. citizen in 2005.
According to the department, Sohal had been ordered deported in 1994 under the name Dev Singh. Instead of complying with that order, he assumed a new identity with a different name, date of birth, and date of entry, ultimately applying for naturalization under the name Gurdev Sohal. Authorities say he failed to disclose his prior immigration history while pursuing citizenship under the new identity.
Expert fingerprint analysis in February 2020 confirmed that the submissions tied to both identities belonged to the same individual. The match became possible only after the Department of Homeland Security digitized fingerprint records from older files.
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Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, from the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said, “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 U.S. citizenship.”
The complaint alleges that Sohal illegally procured his citizenship because he was never lawfully admitted for permanent residence. It further charges that the false statements he made during the process undermined his ability to demonstrate the good moral character required for naturalization. A third count accuses him of willful misrepresentation and concealment of his prior identity and immigration history.
This case marks the ninth denaturalization action filed by the Justice Department since Jan. 20. It is part of the Historic Fingerprint Enrollment project, a joint initiative of the Justice Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that uses digitized records to detect fraud in past immigration cases.
The matter is being handled by the Office of Immigration Litigation’s General Litigation and Appeals Section, Affirmative Litigation Unit, with support from USCIS and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
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