The Justice Department is seeking to revoke the citizenship of Walid Abdelnabbi Hassan Osman, a 62-year-old naturalized citizen born in Egypt, over a job he allegedly never did. According to the department, Osman held H-1B status for about six years in the 2000s on paper as a professional employee of a company run by a relative, while in reality he drove a taxi. The government argues that this one deception undermines every immigration benefit he received afterward, including his citizenship.
The case, No. 1:26-cv-03163, was filed on Sept. 23 in the Alexandria Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. It has been assigned to District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. and Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis. It is one of 40 denaturalization actions the department announced on Oct. 5, and it could become an early test of how far the government can reach into the immigration files of the H-1B era.
What the government alleges
According to the department’s summary, Osman entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2001, extended his stay, and then obtained H-1B status through a company run by a family member. The department says the position provided him no meaningful employment and that he worked as a taxi driver while remaining in H-1B status until 2007, a span that matches the six-year maximum the law generally allows for H-1B status. He became a permanent resident in 2009 as a derivative beneficiary of his spouse’s diversity visa and later naturalized. The release does not give the date of his naturalization.
The government is pursuing two theories. The first is that Osman was never lawfully admitted for permanent residence because of the visa fraud. The second is that he gave false testimony and made material misrepresentations about his work history during the naturalization process. The claims are allegations, and no court has made any finding.
No criminal case to build on
Many denaturalization cases follow a criminal prosecution, so the government can rely on facts a defendant admitted in a plea agreement or a jury found at trial. Nothing in the department’s summary suggests Osman was ever charged with a crime. That makes the government’s task harder. It cannot point to a plea agreement; it will have to prove the fraud from the immigration and employment records themselves, and it must do so by clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence, the demanding standard the Supreme Court set for denaturalization in Schneiderman v. United States and Fedorenko v. United States.
The civil route also explains why the case exists at all. Federal prosecutors generally have ten years to bring criminal charges for visa and immigration-document fraud. Conduct from 2001 to 2007 is well beyond that window. A civil action under 8 U.S.C. 1451(a) has no statute of limitations, so it is effectively the only tool left for conduct this old. That is a point the government’s supporters see as essential, since fraud that went undetected for decades should not be rewarded. Critics see the same point as a problem, since a defendant may struggle to reconstruct employment records from 20 years ago.
The legal theory: a defect at the foundation
The first count is the more consequential one. To naturalize, an applicant must have been “lawfully admitted for permanent residence.” The Board of Immigration Appeals and federal courts have long read that phrase to require that the green card was substantively lawful, not merely that the government approved it. In Matter of Koloamatangi in 2003, the board held that a person who obtained permanent residence through fraud was never lawfully admitted, even though the status was formally granted. Under that reasoning, if the H-1B arrangement involved willful misrepresentation, Osman may have been inadmissible when he became a permanent resident in 2009, and his later naturalization would be illegally procured whether or not he said anything false at his citizenship interview.
That is significant because an illegal-procurement claim does not require the government to prove the materiality of any particular statement, an issue that has complicated other denaturalization cases since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Kungys v. United States and Maslenjak v. United States. The second count, based on false testimony and misrepresentation at naturalization, gives the government an alternative route if the first falters.
Several questions are likely to shape the defense. One is knowledge: H-1B petitions are filed by the employer, not the worker, and the government must show that Osman himself knowingly took part in a misrepresentation rather than simply relying on a relative’s petition. A second is how the 2009 green card was obtained, whether by adjusting status inside the United States or through a consulate abroad, and what the government knew at that time. A third is whether any fraud-related inadmissibility could have been waived. Federal law allows waivers in some cases for the spouses of citizens and permanent residents, and a court may need to decide whether that possibility affects the analysis.
Osman has a lawyer and an early appearance
The docket suggests Osman intends to contest the case. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of Murray Osorio, an immigration firm based in Fairfax, Virginia, entered an appearance as his lead counsel on Sept. 28, five days after the complaint was filed and before any proof of service had been docketed. Many denaturalization defendants never respond, and those cases often end in default judgments. A prompt appearance by experienced immigration counsel suggests this one is headed for litigation. The government is represented by Christopher Lyerla of the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation.
Under 8 U.S.C. 1451, Osman has 60 days after service to answer, longer than in an ordinary civil case. A summons was issued on Sept. 25. The next filings will likely be either an answer or a motion to dismiss, which could test whether the complaint pleads willful fraud by Osman himself with enough detail.
What it means for former H-1B workers
Hundreds of thousands of naturalized citizens once held H-1B status, and the case may cause anxiety among them. The allegations here, however, describe something quite different from the ordinary problems of H-1B employment, such as a layoff, a period without assigned projects, a job change or a gap between petitions. The government’s claim is that the employer did no business and the job never existed. Courts have generally treated sham employment as fraud and routine compliance problems as status issues, and nothing in the release suggests the department is treating the second category as grounds for denaturalization.
Still, the case is a reminder that an immigration file can be reopened decades later. Former H-1B workers who naturalized should keep W-2s, pay records and employment letters from their H-1B years. Anyone who has doubts about how a past petition was handled, particularly one filed by a family member’s business, can request their immigration file through the Freedom of Information Act and have an immigration attorney review it.
Two ways to see it
Supporters of the department’s approach argue that H-1B fraud harms American workers and honest applicants, and that people who obtained status through sham employment should not keep the citizenship built on it, however much time has passed. Skeptics argue that reopening conduct from two decades ago, with no criminal charge and against a man who has lived in the country since 2001, raises questions of fairness and proportionality, and they note that defendants in civil denaturalization cases have no right to a court-appointed lawyer. The law leaves that judgment to the court. Judge Alston will decide whether the government’s evidence meets the highest civil standard of proof.
Immigration Analytics will update this story when the complaint becomes available and as the case progresses.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Oct. 5, 2026; docket, United States of America v. Osman, No. 1:26-cv-03163-RDA-IDD (E.D. Va.); 8 U.S.C. 1451; Matter of Koloamatangi, 23 I&N Dec. 548 (BIA 2003).
This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.
About the Author
Discover more from Immigration Analytics
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
