San Francisco, CA
DoJ closes San Francisco immigration court in move critics say worsens case backlog
The Department of Justice shuttered a major San Francisco immigration court last week, a decision attorneys say could exacerbate the Bay Area’s immigration case backlog.
Early in the year, news reports emerged of the closure of the courthouse on 100 Montgomery Street slated for January 2027. Over the last year, the Department of Justice had fired 20 of the court’s 22 judges (the Trump administration has been accused of culling certain immigration judges, in favor of those more amenable to its ongoing mass deportation agenda).
The justice department’s executive office for immigration review (EOIR) described the court’s closure as “cost effective” in a statement last week. A smaller court in San Francisco remains open, but the majority of court operations will move to an immigration court 35 miles (56km) away in the East Bay city of Concord.
The Concord court opened in 2024 amid a Biden-era push to trim the ballooning immigration case backlog. As of September 2025, nationwide there are 3.75m pending immigration cases, according to data from the EOIR. In San Francisco, there are 120,000, per the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (Trac), a research center at Syracuse University.
Some legal experts doubt the Concord court, where six judges were recently removed, has the capacity to inherit the closed San Francisco court’s caseload. A justice department spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“With so few judges at the Concord court, we’re going to see a lot of people waiting years and years and years to have their cases heard,” said Milli Atkinson, director of the San Francisco Bar Association’s immigrant legal defense program.
“These delays deeply affect people. They affect people’s ability to have resolution … to have an answer and closure, whether a positive one that they’d hoped for or a negative one,” said Shira Levine, a former judge at the San Francisco immigration court, who is now legal director for the Immigrant Institute of the Bay Area.
The passage of time could also weaken the presentation of a case.
At asylum hearings, people are “presenting a lot of oral testimony from themselves and from witnesses. Over years, testimonial memories can fade,” Levine said. “Even if you submit the written evidence, years later, someone may not be available to testify in support of that evidence.”
The San Francisco court’s closure coupled with the exodus of judges has sown “a lot of chaos”, Atkinson said. There are court dates being pushed back and others being pushed up as a result of recent changes.
Atkinson expects that there several individuals will fall through the cracks of the court system.
“A lot of migrants have unstable addresses or don’t receive their mail,” she said, also adding that notices in English may not be heeded by those who don’t speak or read it.
People could then be placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s radar if they miss their hearings, Atkinson said.
“If someone gets the wrong date, gets the wrong time, gets the wrong place, doesn’t file something exactly correct … the consequences are in some cases – where they really do have a serious fear of return – life-threatening.”
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San Francisco, CA
Dozens of apparent shopping carts stuck in marsh along SF Bay: ‘How did they get there?!’
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KGO) — Dozens of apparent shopping carts are stuck in a marsh along the San Francisco Bay. And residents are puzzled as to how they got there.
“It’s crazy! Gross!” said Kim Avalos, who frequents the trail. “What is that?!”
The San Francisco Bay Trail in South San Francisco curves around the mouth of the Colma Creek marsh. It’s a popular walking and running trail, but local residents are starting to notice something in the water.
“Now that I’m looking at… wow…there’s actually so many shopping carts out here,” said Avalos. “There’s an extreme amount.”
Avalos works for a nearby garbage company. She says she walks the trail every day but has never seen anything like this.
“It’s actually kind of insane to think about how they even got there,” Avalos said.
It’s the same story for others who frequent the trail. At first glance, mistaking the debris for rocks until they actually stare at it.
“It kind of blends in,” said Hondres when we approached him on the trail. “I’ve never seen grocery carts out in the Bay like this… I don’t know, it’s kind of weird.”
“Have you noticed it before?” 7 On Your Side’s Stephanie Sierra asked another passer-by.
“Uh… no. This is kind of new,” he said. “Someone is being very stupid… I’ve seen them over the years. I don’t remember there being this many. There’s quite a few.”
Many people who frequent the trail said when it’s high tide it’s hard to notice anything.
“It does look like shopping carts, do you know if that’s what it is?”
It’s hard to say for sure. But at low tide, it certainly looks that way.
“It does look like shopping carts, amongst other things,” Save the Bay representative Josh Quigley said.
And there’s not just one or two, but there’s what appears to be dozens of them spanning the Colma Creek marsh adjacent to the bay.
“Have you ever seen this many shopping carts along the bay?” Stephanie Sierra asked.
“I have not, no,” Quigley said. “This is certainly the greater concentration that I’ve ever seen in one place.”
Quigley is the Senior Policy Manager for Save the Bay, an environmental nonprofit founded in 1961 to stop excessive filling of the San Francisco Bay.
“I think it’s really unfortunate… the bay is treated not as the jewel and resource that it should be, but as a dumping ground,” Quigley said.
So, where is it all coming from? That seems to be up for debate.
“It could be a big prank, if anything, but at this rate I have no idea,” said Alvin Lau, who visits the trail regularly.
“There’s often homeless people in the mobile RV vehicles,” said another. “There’s always a lot of trash here, not going to lie.”
“I don’t know, maybe Costco. They are our neighbors,” Kim Avalos said. “Could be because they do look bigger.”
A Costco Business Center is about a mile from Colma Marsh. 7 On Your Side reached out to Costco’s corporate office, and the South San Francisco Costco General Manager said: “We walk and clean the trail multiple times a week, in addition to checking for any carts that might end up in the bay.”
The goal now is to clean it out — and ensure it stays that way.
“Stop being dumb. There’s only one planet we got, so take care of it,” said Lau.
“It hurts me as an animal lover to see all these shopping carts in their place of habitat,” Avalos said.
“Save the Bay” says overall pollution is decreasing across the bay shoreline, but there are instances–like this one–where smaller pockets need to be addressed.
Locally, there are regulations in place to prevent this type of pollution.
7 On Your Side contacted the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to further investigate and clean up the area.
Take a look at more stories and videos by 7 On Your Side.
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SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco will celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary this July 4 with a rare fireworks show on the Golden Gate Bridge, the mayor’s office announced Monday. It will be the first time in 14 years, and the third time ever, that a fireworks display will be held on the iconic span.
“The Golden Gate Bridge is as iconic as any landmark in the United States, so it’s an ideal place to launch fireworks for our country’s 250th anniversary,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a news release announcing the event.
With the change of venue for the city’s annual July 4 fireworks show, the mayor’s office is providing guidance on where to watch, and where not to watch, this year’s Golden Gate Bridge display, set to begin at 9:30 p.m.
Recommended viewing locations:
- Crissy Field
- Marina Green
- Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39
The mayor’s office noted that “because this year’s fireworks will launch from the east side of the Golden Gate Bridge between its two towers, the best viewing areas are those with a clear northwest sightline toward the bridge.”
Locations that are not recommended for viewing the fireworks show due to obstructed views include Ocean Beach, the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero waterfront.
The Golden Gate Bridge will be completely shut down to vehicle and pedestrian traffic during the Independence Day show. Vehicles will be blocked from the bridge beginning around 8:30 p.m. until “shortly after the conclusion of the fireworks display,” officials said. The east and west sidewalks will be closed from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The two previous fireworks displays were in 1987 and 2012, when the Golden Gate Bridge’s 50th and 75th anniversaries were celebrated.
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