Immigration Lawyer Gets 90-Day Suspension for Abandoning Client

A Minnesota attorney will be suspended for 90 days and receive two years of supervised probation for allegedly abandoning an immigration client who was at risk of being removed from the country, the state’s high court ruled.

Patrick Chinedu Nwaneri was accused of violating Minnesota professional conduct rules by failing to prepare for a client’s removal hearing and submitting a faulty biometrics application, despite knowing the importance of biometric data in similar immigration cases. The client, a Tanzania native who entered the US on a student visa in 2003, was ultimately ordered to be removed to Tanzania.

After a two-day ...