Pakistani Students Accused of Visa Fraud

Federal prosecutors filed immigration fraud charges Friday against two Pakistani students who were being held for questioning after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A federal magistrate unsealed the charges, originally lodged Nov. 5 by federal prosecutors, one day after an immigration judge ruled Thursday that the students would not be deported if they left the country voluntarily by Dec. 21.

The filing of the charges overrides the immigration judge’s decision, meaning the students cannot leave the U.S. until the criminal case is concluded.

Attorneys for the two students, Ahmed Atta and Salman Hyder, who remain in custody, said the government was trying to pressure their clients into providing information that they don’t have regarding the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Court documents unsealed in Los Angeles federal court on Friday say the two 19-year-olds, who had lived in Fountain Valley, have been charged with visa fraud. In particular, they are charged with making false statements in order to get jobs in Orange County--something they were not eligible to do under their student visas. The charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.

The government also filed similar charges against a third Pakistani man, Salman Hamid Khan, who is being held after apparently coming to federal attention after his phone number was discovered on the phone records of Atta or Hyder.

U.S. Magistrate Stephen Hillman held a brief arraignment for the three and ordered them held without bail pending a hearing Tuesday.

The charges against Atta and Hyder mention nothing about terrorism. However, the two men, who were originally taken into custody Oct. 8, were questioned five times by FBI agents before they obtained legal representation Nov. 1, according to Carrye Washington, one of their attorneys.

Washington said the men, and friends of theirs, had been questioned about terrorism. Atta has the same last name as Mohammed Atta, who is believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. The Atta who piloted that plane was from Egypt, not Pakistan.

Ahmed Atta also has been questioned about why he went to Saudi Arabia shortly before the terrorist attacks and returned shortly after, Washington said.

She said her client had gone there to renew a visa. Atta told the FBI that he knew nothing about the Sept. 11 attacks nor the people involved in them, she said.

Los Angeles attorney Guillermo Suarez, Washington’s co-counsel, said that, until Thursday night, “I had this Pollyannaish attitude” that Atta and Hyder were merely facing “a minor INS charge” of failing to attend classes full time while in the U.S. on a student visa.

However, Suarez said, when Washington went to talk to the two men after the immigration hearing Thursday, she was informed that U.S. marshals had taken them to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles--a sign they were facing serious charges.

On Friday morning, the defense attorneys learned in federal court that federal charges for visa fraud had been lodged against the two men, under seal, on Nov. 5.

U.S. Atty. Eliot F. Kreiger declined to comment beyond what was in the affidavits submitted by INS Agent Scott Warneke.

The affidavit on Atta states he entered the U.S. through New York in January 2000 and enrolled at Irvine Valley College. The affidavit states that he provided a false statement about his eligibility to work in order to get a job at Fry’s Electronics in Fountain Valley.

Warneke’s affidavit about Hyder, who has known Atta since they were small boys, is similar, saying Hyder entered the U.S. in 2000 through Los Angeles to attend Irvine Valley College. The affidavit states that Hyder was discharged from his job at Fry’s after it was discovered that he had a fake Social Security card.

“The government believes there is more than meets the eye,” said Suarez, who is representing Atta in the criminal case. “They are saying my client made deceptive responses on a polygraph examination, but we have not been able to question the polygraph examiner, and the test could not be admitted in court anyhow.”

Thousands of illegal immigrants are deported from the U.S. every year. Only a fraction of them are subjected to criminal charges.

Nils Frenzen, a USC law professor and immigration expert who has been following the case closely, said that, normally, criminal charges are filed in such circumstances when someone is a repeat offender, not first-time offenders such as Atta and Hyder allegedly are.