The Justice Department has shuttered the main San Francisco immigration courthouse at 100 Montgomery St., an abrupt closure that sends more than 100,000 pending cases to a court in Concord, California — a commute of an hour or more across the San Francisco Bay — and leaves immigrants, attorneys and legal aid groups scrambling to adjust.
The DOJ announced earlier this year that it would not renew the lease on the building, which housed 21 courtrooms and served as the central immigration court for a region stretching from California’s Central Valley to central Oregon. The closure, originally expected at the end of the year, was accelerated. About 17,000 cases will remain in San Francisco at a second, smaller location with two operating courtrooms at 630 Sansome St.
The DOJ cited cost savings as the reason. Kathryn Mattingly, a spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, said in a statement that “reducing the immigration court backlog remains a priority for the agency” and that “any immigration judge can hear any case at any time throughout the country to assist with caseloads.”
But the shutdown deals a symbolic blow to a city that has long been a vanguard of immigration advocacy, and it comes as the Trump administration has dramatically reduced the number of immigration judges nationally.
The San Francisco immigration court was known as one of the courts most likely to grant asylum. In fiscal year 2025, it denied asylum about 30% of the time, half the national average, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Since 2004, more than half of respondents who received a decision in San Francisco were approved for asylum. The court also had one of the highest representation rates in the country: about 69% of immigrants with cases there had lawyers, according to the American Immigration Council.
“It’s part of the message that the Trump administration is sending, that they’re not open to asylum seekers,” said Bill Hing, a law and migration studies professor at the University of San Francisco. “And one way of doing that is closing the court that has been very generous to asylum seekers.”
Nationally, the immigration court system started the year with a quarter fewer immigration judges than at the start of 2025, even as the backlog of cases reached 3.5 million. The Trump administration has terminated over 130 immigration judges; many others have resigned or retired.
The Bay Area has been particularly affected. San Francisco’s main courthouse went from 21 judges to none at the closed location; the smaller location now has 2 judges. The Concord Immigration Court, which opened in 2024, was planned to have 21 judges but now has 4, not counting a supervisor. The administration hired a record class of more than 80 new judges in May, but only one was assigned to Concord.
Cases moved to Concord are currently being scheduled for unnamed “visiting judges” — a designation attorneys say creates uncertainty because the judge could be in another part of the country appearing by video conference.
Ghassan Shamieh, an immigration attorney with hundreds of cases still pending in the Montgomery Street court, said the uncertainty is “incredibly scary.” Judges there had cases scheduled through 2027 and 2028, he said. Now those hearings are in limbo.
“It’s to make the barriers to having your case heard so high that it becomes almost virtually impossible,” Shamieh said, speculating about the administration’s reasons. “Changing locations of the physical court is a step to further that agenda.”
Elin, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker who arrived in the U.S. in 2020, has had his final asylum hearing rescheduled multiple times. The judge originally assigned to his case was fired. His hearing is now scheduled for 2029 — in San Francisco at the closed Montgomery Street location, with a judge who no longer works there. He does not own a car and faces a commute of more than an hour to Concord.
“There isn’t a set date and this situation is very stressful – sometimes I am afraid to go outside,” Elin said in an interview with NPR, providing only his first name for fear of reprisals. “My brother’s asylum was approved and he just got his green card. So for me, I think this wait time is harmful because I am still in limbo.”
The uncertainty is also affecting legal aid organizations. Jordan Weiner, interim executive director of La Raza Centro Legal, said her firm has stopped taking new cases because of the unpredictability of the paused caseload while the transfer proceeds.
“Even though it’s sort of like a lull, that doesn’t mean we can sign more clients because tomorrow we could get hearing notices for every single client for next week,” Weiner said.
Legal groups in San Francisco and Concord are beginning to coordinate resources. A coalition of about 100 volunteers in Concord wears bright blue vests and distributes packets with lawyers’ contact information and application-fee assistance. The Bar Association of San Francisco trains its “attorneys of the day” volunteers in the Concord court as well. But the transition raises concerns that immigrants without lawyers may not know they are supposed to appear in a different city.
Milli Atkinson, director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Bar Association of San Francisco, said that during the 2024 transition to Concord, some grace was given to immigrants who missed hearings because of confusion over the new location. She worries that this time, with the administration “looking for ways to issue more orders of deportation,” that grace may not be extended.
Mattingly said the agency is issuing new hearing notices to all parties whose cases are reassigned.
Despite the practical adjustments, the loss of the historic courthouse is bittersweet for attorneys who have practiced there for decades.
“Like Ellis Island, like Angel Island, there’s a history of tragic injustice,” Atkinson said. “But there is also a history of moments of people’s lives being changed and people having, for the first time maybe ever, the sense that they’re going to be safe and that there’s a future and hope for them and their family.”