SF Immigration Courts Near Collapse
San Francisco's immigration courts are facing a severe backlog as the number of judges has plummeted from 21 to just two since the start of last year. The dramatic reduction, caused by reassignments and departures, is severely hampering the court's ability to process its caseload, impacting the city's legal infrastructure.
The number of departing judges from San Francisco's two immigration courts totals 19 since the beginning of last year, with 12 of them having been fired. The remaining judges have retired, transferred, or received other judicial appointments. This leaves a critically low number of judges to handle one of the country's busiest immigration dockets. San Francisco's immigration court now faces a backlog of over 120,000 pending cases, the largest of any immigration court in California. With the severe reduction in judicial staff, newly filed cases are being scheduled for final hearings as far out as 2029. This has created a situation of prolonged legal uncertainty for thousands of immigrants. The average wait time for a decision in San Francisco's immigration courts is approximately 914 days, or about two and a half years, which is the longest in the state. For some asylum-seekers, the wait for a hearing has stretched to an average of 4.5 years. This lengthy delay has significant financial and emotional tolls on immigrants and the nonprofit organizations that support them. The reduction in judges is part of a larger national trend that has seen the country's total immigration case backlog grow to over 3.7 million cases by the end of 2024. While the Department of Justice has not provided specific reasons for the firings, some former judges and immigration attorneys believe the terminations targeted those with higher-than-average asylum approval rates. Each departing judge in San Francisco was responsible for a docket of between 4,000 and 6,000 cases. The reassignment of these massive caseloads to the few remaining judges is expected to further exacerbate the already critical backlog. The court's operational capacity has been so diminished that it has struggled to send out timely notifications of case changes. This creates a risk of individuals being ordered removed from the U.S. simply for failing to appear at a hearing they were not properly notified about. One of the two remaining judges, Michelle Slayton, is reportedly transferring to the Portland Immigration Court at her own request, which would leave just a single judge in San Francisco. Judge Karen Schulz, the other remaining judge, was appointed to the Santa Clara County Superior Court. There are also plans to close the San Francisco immigration court located at 100 Montgomery St. and transfer its substantial caseload to the immigration court in Concord. The Concord court already has a backlog of 60,000 cases of its own.
