{"id":45955,"date":"2026-01-08T12:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45955"},"modified":"2026-01-08T12:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:04:11","slug":"downtown-san-francisco-immigration-court-set-to-close-in-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/01\/08\/downtown-san-francisco-immigration-court-set-to-close-in-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtown San Francisco Immigration Court Set to Close In a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

7 January 2026\/SF Politics<\/a>\/Jay Barmann<\/a> (SFist.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The federal immigration court in downtown San Francisco that started 2025 with 21 judges and will soon be down to just four, thanks to Trump administration mass-firings, will close by January 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News arrived Wednesday that federal officials are planning to shut down the immigration court at 100 Montgomery Street in San Francisco by the end of the year, and transfer all or most immigration court activity to the court in Concord. Mission Local reported the news<\/a> via a source close to the situation, and KTVU subsequently confirmed the move<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeremiah Johnson, one of the SF judges who was fired this past year, serves as vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, and confirmed the news to KTVU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration court operations, has yet to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Mission Local reports, a smaller set of courtrooms at the other SF immigration facility and ICE headquarters at 630 Sansome Street will remain open for business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Concord immigration court saw five judge fired last year, though two had not yet begun hearing any cases. Seven judges remain at that court, and four remaining judges based at 100 Montgomery are expected to be transferred there by this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mission Local previously reported<\/a> that out of 21 judges serving at the courthouse last spring, 13 have been fired in recent months, and four others are scheduled for retirement by the end of this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is happening as the court has a backlog of some 120,000 pending cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Politico reported last month<\/a>, the Trump administration has fired around 98 immigration judges out of the 700 who had been serving as of early last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivia Cassin, a fired judge based in New York, said this was by design, and, “It\u2019s about destroying a system where cases are carefully considered by people with knowledge of the subject matter.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all perfectly legal, as Politico explained, because immigration judges serve in administrative courts as at-will employees, under the purview of the Department of Justice \u2014 and do not have the same protections as the federal judiciary bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for the DOJ has said that the department is “restoring integrity to our immigration system and encourages talented legal professionals to join in our mission to protect national security and public safety,” following “four years of the Biden Administration forcing Immigration Courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands of aliens.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson also spoke to Politico suggesting that this recruitment language by the DOJ is disingenuous, and that the real intention is just to cripple the entire court system and prevent most legal immigration cases from being heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“During Trump One, when I was appointed, there was a policy that got some pushback called \u2018No Dark Courtrooms.\u2019 We were to hear cases every day, use all the [available] space,\u201d Johnson said, speaking to Politico. “Now, there\u2019s vacant courtrooms that are not being utilized. And any attempts by the administration saying they\u2019re replacing judges \u2014 the math just doesn\u2019t work if you look at the numbers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Democrats in the House, Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Zoe Lofgren of California, have recently introduced legislation that would move immigration courts out of the Executive branch, but that seems likely to go nowhere until Democrats regain control in Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 January 2026\/SF Politics\/Jay Barmann (SFist.com) The federal immigration court in downtown San Francisco that started 2025 with 21 judges and will soon be down to just four, thanks to Trump administration mass-firings, will close by January 2027. News arrived Wednesday that federal officials are planning to shut down the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45957,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45955\/revisions\/45957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}