Sqoop will by default import NULL values as string null. Hive is however using string \N to denote NULL values and therefore predicates dealing with NULL (like IS NULL) will not work correctly. You should append parameters --null-string and --null-non-string in case of import job or --input-null-string and --input-null-non-string in case of an export job if you wish to properly preserve NULL values. Because sqoop is using those parameters in generated code, you need to properly escape value \N to \\N:
$ sqoop import ... --null-string '\\N' --null-non-string '\\N'
$ sqoop import ... --null-string '\\N' --null-non-string '\\N'