San Francisco has also been utilizing a judge remotely from San Diego, Atkinson said. The court currently has a backlog of 120,000 cases. At the same time, many people have stopped showing up for court-ordered appointments, likely out of fear of arrest and deportation. Advocates’ alarms went off last week after observers noticed judges who normally serve in the immigration court in Concord were scheduled for hearings in San Francisco. Instead of a typical schedule of one morning and one afternoon hearing, the hearings were back-to-back, with scores of immigrants ordered to appear at the same time, Atkinson said.

Source: The Guardian March 25, 2026 15:04 UTC