The United States Department of Justice has published an updated register of immigration practitioners currently under disciplinary action, and the names of fifteen lawyers of Nigerian origin appear among those sanctioned. The list is maintained by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) through its Attorney Discipline Programme, which governs conduct before US immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals. Sanctions on the register range from fixed-term suspensions to outright disbarment, and in the majority of cases involving Nigerian practitioners, no reinstatement has been recorded.
The most recent update to the register is dated September 2026, with a California-based practitioner named as the newest addition. However, a full review of the document reveals a pattern of Nigerian-named lawyers facing serious professional consequences stretching back more than two decades, with the earliest case on the list dating to 2001. The breadth of that timeline — and the near-total absence of reinstatements — underscores how permanent these outcomes tend to be once the EOIR acts.
The Fifteen Practitioners Named
The following Nigerian practitioners currently appear on the EOIR’s disciplinary register, listed with their state of practice, the nature of their sanction and the date it took effect.
What the EOIR Discipline Programme Does
The EOIR’s Attorney Discipline Programme exists to enforce professional conduct standards among lawyers and accredited representatives who appear before US immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals. When a practitioner is found to have committed professional misconduct — whether through fraud, neglect of client matters, or other violations — the programme can impose sanctions that bar them from practising before those specific federal bodies, regardless of whether they retain a licence from their state bar. That distinction matters: a lawyer may technically still hold a state licence yet remain barred from immigration proceedings entirely, which in practice ends their ability to serve immigrant clients. The programme publishes its disciplinary register publicly, making the consequences of misconduct visible to prospective clients and to the wider legal community.
The appearance of fifteen Nigerian practitioners on this list does not, in itself, represent a disproportionate share of the overall register, which covers hundreds of lawyers across many nationalities. What it does confirm is that Nigerian-origin practitioners are present and active within the US immigration law sector — a sector that carries enormous responsibility, given that the clients involved are often vulnerable people navigating complex and high-stakes legal processes. Professional misconduct in this space can have life-altering consequences for clients who may lose their cases, their status or their right to remain in the country as a direct result of poor or dishonest legal representation.