Prominent immigration lawyer and local advocate Margo Cowan has been suspended from practicing law for two years by the Board of Immigration Appeals due to violating the rules of professional conduct, court records say.
The Board of Immigration Appeals ordered this month that Cowan be suspended for two years from practice before the Immigration Courts, the board and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Cowan’s suspension was supposed to go into effect on July 22, but her attorney, William Walker, said they have asked for a delay while it goes to federal court.
“Hopefully, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona will see through this and will seek to give people back their representation,” Walker said. “If this happens, and she is suspended from practice, there will be over 1,000 people that will lose representation in court.”
Walker said Cowan’s organization is the only one in Tucson that helps immigration clients pro bono, or at no charge.
Cowan has been an immigration attorney since 1986 and a defense attorney at the Pima County Public Defender’s Office since 2004. She is also listed as the project supervisor for Keep Tucson Together, a grassroots organization that works to stop deportations in immigration courts.
She was a co-founder of the Sanctuary Movement, an underground railroad that helped asylum seekers fleeing Central American civil wars in the 1980s. Cowan was mentored by farmworkers’ civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the late 1960s to early 1970s, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said in a 2021 news release announcing an award it gave Cowan.
24 counts of rules violations
Her suspension stems from a Notice of Intent to Discipline the Disciplinary Counsel for the Executive Office for Immigration Review filed against her in 2019. The notice charged her with 24 separate counts of “violating various sections of the federal regulations governing the practice before the Immigration Courts and the Board,” court records say.
A five-day disciplinary hearing was held in 2020 where the counts were discussed in front of an adjudicating official.
In the first 11 counts, the government claimed Cowan failed to provide specific grounds for an appeal and failed to file an appeal after stating an intent to do so in the Notice of Appeal. The counts also alleged she did not timely notify the board that she didn’t intend to file an appeal in any of the cases listed in the Notice of Intent, court records say.
Cowan said she didn’t file the briefs because her clients chose not to do so, engaged in criminal activity which would make an appeal unlikely, or she failed to discover any appealable issues after her review of the records, court records say.
“The respondent’s (Cowan) actions constitute frivolous behavior,” court records say. “She failed to take reasonable efforts to determine if there were any appealable issues before filing a Notice of Appeal in 10 out of the 11 cases.”
In counts 12 through 16 and 19, the government alleged Cowan failed to file court-ordered briefs by court-imposed deadlines. Cowan did not oppose the allegations, but said she was unable to file briefs because the pro bono clinic was not equipped to do so or that the briefs were unnecessary because the judge had all of the information he needed to decide the cases, court records say.
Cowan also said that normally, immigration judges do not require briefs to be filed and said that one specific judge is “the only judge in the courts clinic lawyers practice who requests a 42b brief,” court records say.
Lastly, in counts 17, 18 and 20 through 24, the government said Cowan failed to file applications for relief or ensure that her clients completed biometrics requirements by court-imposed deadlines.
In one case, Cowan did not request additional time to prepare her client’s application before the hearing. She then appeared at the hearing and asked for additional time, stating that her client failed to provide the necessary documents to timely file her application for relief, court records say.
However, the judge involved in that particular case testified that Cowan’s client, who was a lawful permanent resident and was seeking to maintain her status, was ordered to be removed since Cowan didn’t file the application, court records say.
After the removal order was issued, the client hired new counsel and filed a motion to reopen the case, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel by Cowan. In the end, the judge granted the client’s relief from removal, court records say.
“Despite the dire consequences, the respondent failed to abide by her obligations to timely file the alien’s application for relief, which initially resulted in her removal,” court records say. “While the respondent claims that her client did not cooperate with her to file her relief application, the record demonstrates that she was indeed ineffective and it was her failure to act in accordance with the rules of professional conduct that resulted in her client’s removal order.”
Court records also say Cowan did not seek a waiver of filing fees for cases where the client could not afford the application fee or the biometrics fee. Cowan said that she was not aware that biometrics fees could be waived.
Cowan says she benefits public interest
The adjudicating official ultimately decided disciplinary sanctions were appropriate because Cowan violated her ethical duties, failed to follow proper procedures and repeatedly failed to follow court imposed, court records say.
“The respondent’s misconduct injured her clients, the legal system and the legal profession as a whole,” court records say.
The adjudicating official, in December 2020, ordered an indefinite suspension of no less than five years with conditions for reinstatement.
Cowan later appealed the decision, saying any sanction that would involve a suspension would be unwarranted because the pro bono service she provides is a significant benefit to public interest and her practice has greatly improved since receiving more funding and staffing, court records say.
On July 5, the board dismissed Cowan’s appeal and ordered the two-year suspension.
The board’s decision said Cowan’s refusal to expressly acknowledge or accept her errors before the adjudicating official appears to show a lack of remorse. However, the record also showed evidence she had taken steps to attempt to rectify the failings in the management of her pro bono clinic, including her saying she has not failed to file a brief since being informed by the Disciplinary Counsel.
The judge who initially filed complaints to the counsel about Cowan’s “problematic conduct” testified that he does not know of any instances since the complaints were filed where the she engaged in inappropriate conduct, the decision said.
“The respondent’s efforts in this regard reveal an acknowledgement of the errors or mistakes in her previous process and practice, even if she has not expressly done so in words, and even if the AO questioned the lasting success of the respondent’s newly implemented case management system and other efforts,” the decision said.
When asked about the suspension, Walker said the decision came from “Trump-appointed” immigration court.
“This woman for her entire career, has devoted herself to helping migrants and undocumented people to have representation in court and what the Trump immigration department has done is everything they can to keep people from having any legal representation at all,” Walker said. “They don’t want these people treated equally; they don’t want them to be heard.”
“This isn’t about Margo Cowan,” Walker said. “This is about an administration that has wanted undocumented people thrown out of this country and heard without proper representation. It’s horrible.”
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