San Francisco, CA
Downtown San Francisco Immigration Court Set to Close In a Year
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 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 via a source close to the situation, and KTVU subsequently confirmed the move.
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.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration court operations, has yet to comment.
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.
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.
Mission Local previously reported 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.
This is happening as the court has a backlog of some 120,000 pending cases.
As Politico reported last month, the Trump administration has fired around 98 immigration judges out of the 700 who had been serving as of early last year.
Olivia Cassin, a fired judge based in New York, said this was by design, and, “It’s about destroying a system where cases are carefully considered by people with knowledge of the subject matter.”
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 — and do not have the same protections as the federal judiciary bench.
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.”
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.
“During Trump One, when I was appointed, there was a policy that got some pushback called ‘No Dark Courtrooms.’ We were to hear cases every day, use all the [available] space,” Johnson said, speaking to Politico. “Now, there’s vacant courtrooms that are not being utilized. And any attempts by the administration saying they’re replacing judges — the math just doesn’t work if you look at the numbers.”
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.
A California sea lion pup found last week on a San Francisco street corner is malnourished but “active and quite feisty,” The Marine Mammal Center said Monday.
The sea lion, believed to be about 10 months old, had apparently wandered into city’s Outer Sunset neighborhood and was discovered early Thursday morning, authorities said.
The pup was spotted near 48th and Irving Streets, one block from Ocean Beach and Sunset Dunes park. A trained responder from the Marine Mammal Center was joined by San Francisco park rangers and police officers to safely corral the pup, now named ‘Irving’, into a carrier crate.
Dubbed ‘Irving’ by his rescuers, Irving weighed in at 40 pounds and is considered malnourished, the Marine Mammal Center said.
“The sea lion is active and quite feisty which is a positive initial sign in terms of general behavior,” the center said in a news release on Monday.
During an exam by veterinarians, a series of blood samples were also taken to determine whether there’s any underlying ailment.
Irving is being tube fed a fish smoothie blend two times per day to boost hydration and weight; offers of whole herring will also begin shortly.
The quick actions by police, recreation and parks staff and Ocean Avenue Animal Hospital gave the young sea lion a second chance at life, said Lauren Campbell, animal husbandry manager at The Marine Mammal Center.
“As a roughly 10-month-old pup in his first year of learning how to forage on his own, this animal has a long road to recovery due to his severe malnutrition,” Campbell said. “We are hopeful that in the coming weeks with continued specialized care that this pup starts to make positive strides toward recovery and release.”
Irving will be held in the Center’s Intensive Quarantine Unit until clearing medical protocols, before likely being transferred this week to a traditional rehabilitation pool pen. A long-term prognosis and potential release timeline are not currently known.
After Sunday’s 3-0 loss to the Washington Nationals, the San Francisco Giants headed back to the West Coast. They’re going back to the Bay Area, too.
The Giants have a date with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series at Oracle Park starting Tuesday night.
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So, San Francisco probably wanted to get out of Washington, D.C., with a win. That didn’t happen at Nationals Park on Sunday afternoon.
Nationals reliever Andrew Alvarez, the third pitcher used by the team on Sunday, picked up the victory with 4 1/3 innings of work. Giants starter Robbie Ray absorbed the loss, falling to 2-3 this season.
Ray worked six innings, giving up seven hits, three runs (all earned), walking one, and striking out seven Nationals. If the Giants’ offense had found a way to tack on some runs, then Ray’s outing wouldn’t have looked so bad.
The Giants’ bats, though, had eight hits. The big number for Giants manager Tony Vitello to look at in the box score after this one was, well, pretty big. San Francisco left 10 runners on base on Sunday, going 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position. This indicates that San Francisco had plenty of opportunities to score some runs.
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They just didn’t get the job done.
Let’s go to the bottom of the fifth with the Giants and Nationals in a scoreless tie. With nobody out, the Nationals’ Keibert Ruiz connected for his third double this season. Nasim Nuñez scored to put Washington up 1-0.
With one out, Curtis Mead sent a Ray pitch over the left-field wall, a two-run blast that gave the Nationals a 3-0 lead.
San Francisco had a scoring threat in the top of the eighth inning. With runners at first and second base and nobody out, Casey Schmitt grounded into a double play. Matt Chapman, who was on second base, went to third. But the Giants were unable to bring him home.
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Rafael Devers and Drew Gilbert went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Giants, producing half of the Giants’ hits.
The Giants fall to 9-13 this season, sitting in fourth place in the National League West Division. The Nationals’ record goes to 10-12, good enough for third place in the National League East Division.
All eyes now turn toward Oracle on Tuesday night. It’ll be a chance for two longtime rivals to renew their rivalry.
Baseball fans know that the Giants-Dodgers matchups usually are must-see TV.
That’s probably going to be the case once again as Giants fans watch their team battle the Dodgers. Those lucky to have tickets to the three-game series at Oracle Park will show up in Giants colors, hoping to see Los Angeles head back to Southern California with either a series loss or a Giants’ sweep.
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Buckle up, Giants fans. It’s about to get rowdy at Oracle Park.
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The 4,140-sq-km bay is the largest estuary on the west coast of the US. Before 2018, this species of whales wasn’t known to stop seasonally or consistently in the bay, bypassing it on their migration route down to Baja California and back up the Arctic, said Josephine Slaathaug, who led a recent study on gray whale mortality in the bay.
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