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.

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco supervisors are calling for a hearing by the board into the massive power outage in the city last month. 

Calls for a hearing 

What we know:

Supervisor Alan Wong and other lawmakers say residents deserve answers about the outage on December 20, which, at its height, affected about a third of the city. 

Wong added that the credits offered by Pacific Gas and Electric are insufficient to cover lost food, wages and many other disruptions. The utility has offered customers and businesses impacted by the Dec. 20 blackout $200 and $2,500 respectively. 

Wong in a statement said power was gradually restored during the initial outage, but that periodic outages continued for several days and that full restoration was achieved on Dec. 23. 

“This was not a minor inconvenience,” said Sup. Wong. “Families lost heat in the middle of winter. Seniors were stranded in their homes. One of my constituents, a 95-year-old man who relies on a ventilator, had to be rushed to the hospital at 2 a.m. People watched their phones die, worried they would lose their only connection to 911.”

Wong’s office had sent the utility a letter after previous outages on Dec. 7 and Dec. 10, regarding the utility’s lack of reliability. The letter called the frequency of the outages unacceptable. 

PG&E agreed with Wong’s office’s characterization of service specific to the Sunset District and met with the supervisor.  

Despite this development, the root cause of the outage on Dec. 20, that impacted some 130,000 residents citywide, was due to a substation fire near Mission and 8th streets. That fire remains under investigation. 

Wong thanked fellow supervisors Bilal Mahmood, Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, and Myrna Melgar for co-sponsoring his request. The boardmembers have asked board President Rafael Mandelman to refer their request to the appropriate committee. 

Wong is separately submitting a letter of inquiry to the SF Public Utilities Commission requesting an analysis of cost and implementation of what it would take for San Francisco to have its own publicly-owned electrical grid. 

The other side:

A PG&E spokesperson addressed the board on Tuesday, asking for the hearing to be scheduled after they get results of an independent investigation. 

“We have hired an independent investigator company named Exponent to conduct a root-cause investigation. We are pushing for it to be completed as soon as possible with preliminary results by February which we will share with the city,” said Sarah Yoell with PG&E government affairs. “We are proud of our ongoing investments to serve San Francisco.” 

Yoell assured the utility would be transparent with whatever they find. 

PG&E added that they have met all state requirements and that they have a current Safety Certificate approved by OEIS (Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety). 

Loss of inventory

Abdul Alomari, co-owner of Ember Grill in the Tenderloin, said his business lost electricity during the massive outage. 

“It’s not just me. Across the street, all these restaurants here, nearby businesses. It hurst a lot of people. I’m just one small voice from so many people here that got hurt,” said Alomari. 

He plans to attend the PG&E hearing and said Tenderloin merchants already have a tough time. 

“Less people come here, the Tenderloin, Every single bit of help helps. It doesn’t help that every three months we get a power outage for four hours and we lose business,” said Alomari.

He said compensation from PG&E alone is not the answer. He wants reliability and stability. 

“That’s only short time if we have things like this happen all the time, eventually it’ll off set what we get,” Alomari said.