For nearly 80 years, the immigration court at 100 Montgomery Street in San Francisco’s Financial District has processed the asylum claims and immigration applications of hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. Earlier this year, the Justice Department declared its intention to close the court at the end of the calendar year. Then in the beginning of May, the Justice Department abruptly announced that the court would be closing May 1st, sending all remaining cases over to the DHS building at 630 Sansome, just a few blocks over. That court too will now be all but shuttered, sending the vast majority of cases to the court in Concord, around 30 miles away.
The two courts had a backlog of 120,000 cases in 2025. No doubt that number has likely increased significantly, as the Trump administration has fired all but two of San Francisco’s immigration judges, down from around two dozen at the beginning of Trump’s second term. All of those cases will now be moved to the Concord immigration court, which also has a significant backlog of around 60,000 cases. The Concord court is around an hour and a half away by transit, not factoring in potentially disastrous service cuts to BART, the Bay Area’s rapid transit service, in the immediate future.
Many politicians have said over and over again that immigrants and asylum seekers should “simply do things the legal way” and that the Trump administration is only targeting so-called “criminal immigrants.” But these closures (which the Justice department has justified as being “cost effective”) make it immensely more difficult and confusing for people who want to do things the legal way. Barely more than half of the immigrants in San Francisco even have a lawyer, with many having to face the difficult and often terrifying proceedings completely on their own. Many will not be aware of the closure of the courts, and the change of venue. And simply being late for a hearing can often be grounds for deportation.
Last year, community groups and activists mobilized to prevent ICE kidnappings outside of the courts in San Francisco. We must continue to oppose this bare-faced war on immigrants and stand up for the most vulnerable workers in the country!
