New Jersey staffing firm owner exploited the system for profit by filing fraudulent petitions with forged documents for nonexistent jobs, lied under oath to become a citizen anyway.
The Department of Justice, under President Trump’s leadership, has filed a civil complaint to revoke the naturalized U.S. citizenship of Neeraj Sharma, the former CEO and owner of Magnavision LLC, an IT staffing and consulting company based in Somerset, New Jersey.
Sharma, 50, an Indian-born national, is one of 17 naturalized citizens targeted in a sweeping denaturalization effort against fraudsters, sex offenders, drug dealers, and other criminals who lied their way into American citizenship.
According to the DOJ complaint and press release, between April 25, 2015, and April 27, 2017, Sharma, as CEO of Magnavision, signed and filed eleven fraudulent H-1B visa petitions with USCIS under penalty of perjury.
Each petition falsely claimed that the foreign IT workers had secured full-time positions at a major national bank. The filings included forged letters on the bank’s official letterhead complete with forged signatures of bank executives.
Sharma knew the documents were fake. He had never actually secured real jobs for the beneficiaries at the bank. Instead, he leveraged his own role as a contracted business analyst at the bank to manufacture the fraudulent sponsorship claims.
This was a classic exploitation of the H-1B program, intended for genuine specialty occupations and skilled talent, turned into a profit-driven scam. Sharma profited by recruiting foreign nationals desperate for U.S. visas and selling them the illusion of legitimate sponsorship through his staffing firm.
Sharma became a U.S. permanent resident in 2012. In April 2017, right in the middle of his fraudulent H-1B scheme, he filed his Application for Naturalization. Under penalty of perjury, and later in sworn testimony during his naturalization interview, he answered “NO” to key questions:
- Had he ever committed a crime or offense for which he was not arrested?
- Had he ever given false, fraudulent, or misleading information or documentation to U.S. government officials?
- Had he ever lied to U.S. government officials to gain immigration benefits?
All lies. USCIS approved his application, and he took the oath of allegiance and became a U.S. citizen on December 7, 2017.
Hellbound and Down 