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Zuwairul Ameer, 61, and his wife, Claudette Ameer, 63, had been doing it since at least 2007 when a client who was approached by the FBI agreed to become a government cooperator, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.
Applicants for asylum in the U.S. must show Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that they have suffered persecution in their homeland because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
Or they must prove a well-founded fear of persecution if they were to return to that country.
Zuwairul Ameer -- aka “Zuwairul Thowfeek” – prepared fraudulent asylum applications on behalf of his non-citizen clients, Sellinger said.
Meanwhile, Ameer’s wife, aka “Claudette Pieries,” managed the business, he said. She was the primary point of contact for clients, arranging meetings and mailing completed applications to USCIS, the U.S. attorney said.
Aided by his wife, Zuwairul Ameer “met with clients, listened to their stories of mistreatment in their countries of origin, and drafted applications on their behalf that were fraudulent because they exaggerated the stories of mistreatment, falsely omitted Zuwairul Ameer’s name as the preparer, or both,” Sellinger said.
The Franklin Township (Mercer County) couple charged at least $1,000 per application, a complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark alleges.
The couple’s cover was blown by a person who’d arrived in the U.S. from Sri Lanka in early 2020, according to a complaint on file in federal court.
The person told Zuwairul Ameer a true story of being mistreated in Sri Lanka, Sellinger said.
However, when Ameer completed the application, he “added false details – including that the person had been sexually abused by police,” the U.S. attorney said.
The applicant resisted, he said, “informing Ameer that the added details were false and wanted them removed.”
Ameer explained, however, that “if they were not in the application, U.S. immigration authorities would not grant asylum” Sellinger said.
The client insisted that Ameer remove the lies, however.
Ameer allegedly agreed but didn’t do what he said he would, the federal complaint says.
Federal investigators “approached the immigrant about the application and the person agreed to work with law enforcement” in November 2020, Sellinger said.
The applicant then contacted Zuwairul Ameer for advice on his upcoming interview with the USCIS.
Law enforcement agents recorded three phone calls with Zuwairul Ameer in which they said he “told the person [that] he left in the fraudulent details and that the person had no viable asylum claim without them.”
Federal investigators then found other examples of falsified applications by both the husband and wife -- including applications in which the couple “grossly inflated alleged persecution via physical or sexual violence” and others in which they didn’t record their involvement in the applications, which Sellinger said is a clear federal violation.
A grand jury in Newark indicted the couple last week on charges of immigration fraud and conspiracy.
Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI - New York Field Office and immigration officers with of the USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate at the New York Asylum Office with the investigation leading to the arrests and charges.
Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron L. Webman of Sellinger’s Criminal Division in Newark.
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