SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco immigration court closed on May 1, 2026, after nearly all of its judges left or were fired, with most of its 117,000 cases moved to a courthouse in Concord about 30 miles away. The court had 21 judges when President Donald Trump was sworn in last year and only two remaining when it closed, with the others fired, retired, or resigned during a White House purge of federal immigration judges.

The Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Department of Justice branch that oversees immigration courts, announced in March that it would close the San Francisco courthouse in 2027 as a cost-saving measure and shift cases to Concord. The closure came earlier than planned. The office declined to renew the San Francisco lease and said it does not comment on personnel matters. The two remaining judges will work from another federal building in the city but be part of an immigration court across the bay.

The Concord courthouse opened two years ago to help with San Francisco's backlog. It had 11 judges at the start of 2025 and now has five after a series of firings, with a caseload of 60,000 cases before the San Francisco cases were added. Armed security guards ask every person if they are carrying weapons or explosives and watch as each person turns off their cell phone. Coffee is not allowed, and only water in a transparent bottle is permitted.

San Francisco immigration court had the third-highest number of asylum cases in the nation. From 2019 to 2024, almost 75% of petitioners received some form of relief there, compared to 43% nationwide, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. It was one of the first courts in the nation to hire judges with non-prosecutorial backgrounds, many of whom had previously worked with immigrants at nonprofits or defended them in court.

Almost 100 immigration judges seen as too liberal have been fired by the administration, which has approved using hundreds of military lawyers to replace them. There were 754 immigration judges nationwide at the start of Trump's second term and now there are about 600, including some temporary judges. The immigration court system backlog has reached 3.8 million asylum cases.

Judah Lakin, an immigration attorney based in Oakland who also teaches at UC Berkeley School of Law, said one of his clients was provisionally granted asylum by a judge who was fired before signing the decision, then transferred to a second judge who was also fired, and is now with a third judge with the case pending. "I think that's on purpose. That's by design. It's part of the strategy," Lakin said.

Dana Leigh Marks, a former San Francisco immigration judge who retired in 2021 after 35 years on the bench and was among the first judges in the nation hired from private practice, described the closure in broader terms. "It's all a part of big ways and little ways that the Trump administration is trying to get non-citizens out of the country," Marks said.