GREENBELT —Moh ammad A. Bajwa, 39, of Herndon, Virginia, was sentenced this week to 2 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release in connection with his April 14, conviction by a federal jury of immigration fraud related to the filing of false immigration documents that allowed illegal aliens remain in the country
U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams also ordered Bajwa’s construction company, New Superstar Corporation, to pay a $20,000 fine and further ordered the company on probation for three years.
The jury determined that Bajwa, a businessman and sponsoring employer; New SuperstarCorporation; Maqsood Mir, age 52, an immigration lawyer practicing in Potomac, Maryland; and his law firm, Mir Law Associates, LLC, were guilty of various charges of filing false labor certifications. Mir Law Associates, Bajwa and New Superstar Corporation were also convicted of conspiracy to submit false labor certifications and substantive immigration fraud counts, according to a release from U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.
According to trial testimony, Bajwa, Mir and others took advantage of a program administered by the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Securitys’ Citizenship & Immigration Services in which aliens, upon receiving an approved labor certification, could enter or remain in the United States in order to work for a US employer.
Testimony showed that beginning in 1998 and continuing until 2003, Mir and Bajwa falsified labor certification applications to make it appear as if the aliens in fact existed and that they were to be sponsored by and work for U.S. employers, when in fact many of those employers knew nothing about the aliens. Testimony showed that some of the aliens’ names were fictitious, and Mir and Bajwa offered for sale and sold approved immigration documents to aliens willing to pay for them.
Maqsood Mir was sentenced on September 22, to 78 months imprisonment, followed by 3 years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine. Mir Law Associates was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine. Another co-defendant, Zulfiqar Ali, was sentenced on September 19, 2005 to 15 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to a racketeering charge in connection with the Mir scheme. Two other co-defendants, Jamal Hussain and Abdul Javaid, were sentenced to home detention after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges stemming from their role in the scheme.
The Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigated the crimes. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David I. Salem and Chan Park, prosecuted the case.