Shuttering of court at 100 Montgomery would come after mass-firings of immigration judges
by Margaret Kadifa and Mariana Garcia January 6, 2026 (MissionLocal.org)
The San Francisco immigration court building at 100 Montgomery St. is set to close in January 2027, sources close to the court told Mission Local on Tuesday.
Staff have been informed that the immigration court will not renew its lease at the Montgomery location, and that they will be transferred to the Concord immigration court as early as this summer. Courtrooms at San Francisco’s other, smaller location at 630 Sansome St. are expected to remain open, sources told Mission Local.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the country’s immigration courts, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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There were 21 judges at San Francisco’s two immigration court locations — with the vast majority at Montgomery Street — in early spring 2025. There will be just four left by the end of January 2026; the Trump administration fired 13 of those judges, and another four were scheduled to retire by the end of the month. There are over 120,000 pending cases in San Francisco’s immigration court backlog, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Five Concord-based judges have been fired, though two of those judges had not yet started hearing cases when they lost their jobs, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges. Seven are remaining, according to the court’s website.
Both the Sansome and Montgomery courts have been sites of monthly ICE arrests since May 2025, with arrests significantly slowing down in October and November. In 2026, Mission Local has not tracked any ICE arrests.
According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review website, 100 Montgomery’s “operational status” currently remains open.
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Margaret Kadifa
I’m covering immigration. My background includes stints at The Economist in print and podcasting as well as reporting from The Houston Chronicle and elsewhere.More by Margaret Kadifa
Mariana Garcia
Mariana Garcia is a reporting intern covering immigration and graduate of UC Berkeley. Previously, she interned at The Sacramento Bee as a visual journalist, and before that, as a video producer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. When she’s not writing or holding a camera, she enjoys long runs around San Francisco.More by Mariana Garcia
