Greenbelt, Maryland - Thomas M. DiBiagio, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, announced that Maqsood Mir, age 50, of Potomac, Maryland, and Mohammad Bajwa, age 37, of Falls Church, Virginia were indicted on charges of conspiring to submit false documents to the Department of Labor and to the Department of Homeland Security�s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which permitted unknown individuals to enter or remain in the United States as permanent resident aliens.

According to the charges, under a program administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) and ICE, aliens could apply for an immigrant visa to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor for a United States employer. The U.S. employer and the alien were required to fill out and submit to the DOL through state agencies a document known as an Application for Alien Employment Certification. Once approved by the DOL, the form entitled the alien to apply for an immigrant visa to enter the United States to perform the work for which he was hired. If an alien intending to enter the United States through the Labor Certification process changed his mind, the approved Labor Certifications could nevertheless be resold to others who were qualified to perform the job listed and who were otherwise eligible to enter the United States. This process was legally known as a substitution. In all cases, the employer was required to sponsor the alien and to know the alien�s qualifications to fill the job.

In a thirteen count Indictment unsealed after the arrest today of Bajwa, the United States charged Mir, an immigration lawyer practicing in Potomac, Maryland, and Bajwa, a businessman and sponsoring employer, with conspiring to submit false Labor Certification applications for individuals who were not legitimately requested by U.S. employers or who were not known to those employers. The government alleged that Mir used certain of his business clients as unwitting sponsors of unknown aliens. The government further alleged that Bajwa allowed Mir to use his business, the New Superstar Corporation of Arlington, Virginia, as a �sponsor� of aliens who never were intended to work for New Superstar.

If convicted, the defendants face five years imprisonment on the conspiracy charge and ten years on the document fraud charges, and a fine of $250,000 for each charge. Mir�s assets also are subject to forfeiture under the Indictment.

The case is the result of an investigation by the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David I. Salem.