The federal immigration court in Concord, California, had approximately 170,000 cases pending at the end of September, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reported on November 12 — a backlog that has grown since San Francisco's immigration court closed, leaving Concord to carry deportation and asylum cases for much of Northern California.
Source: Claycord / TRAC
The size of the pile-up is now driving a public call for help. The National Lawyers Guild's San Francisco Immigration Justice Program is seeking volunteer immigration attorneys to supervise law students who are assisting people facing deportation proceedings in Concord, Claycord reported.
Source: Claycord
What the volunteer attorneys would do
Volunteer attorneys would review legal filings, supervise up to three law students each and take part in weekly virtual meetings, according to the Guild's call. The work can be done remotely. Interested attorneys can contact the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Immigration Justice Program at migrantjustice@nlgsf.org.
Source: Claycord / National Lawyers Guild
How Concord became the West Coast's largest immigration court
The backlog grew following the closure of San Francisco's immigration court. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), working with the General Services Administration, decided in early 2026 not to renew the expiring federal lease at San Francisco's 100 Montgomery Street courthouse, citing cost-effectiveness. EOIR headquarters ordered the San Francisco court permanently closed by September 4, 2026, and placed the remaining two courtrooms at 630 Sansome Street under the administrative control of the Concord court.
Source: Claycord
Concord's court is not a city building. It sits in a private commercial office tower at 1855 Gateway Boulevard, where the federal government signed a 72,800-square-foot lease in 2022 to build 21 courtrooms. After absorbing San Francisco's caseload, Concord is now the largest immigration court on the West Coast and holds the fifth-largest immigration court caseload in the country, The San Francisco Standard reported.
Source: Bay Area Brief / San Francisco Standard
'Mega master' hearings and removals in absentia
To move the docket, the Justice Department has packed dozens of people into single 'mega master' hearings in Concord. From June through September those hearings averaged 75 to 87 respondents, usually split between two time slots, volunteer court observers told The Standard. Observers said many people whose hearings were suddenly advanced never received notice, and were then ordered removed when they did not appear.
Source: Bay Area Brief / San Francisco Standard
In August, the failure-to-appear rate at those hearings peaked near 63%. Between November and August, about 89% of the people who failed to appear were ordered removed in absentia, according to the observers. Relief grant rates for people who did appear with applications fell from 30% in 2024 to 20% in 2025 and to 2.6% in the first eight months of 2026, according to Immigration Court Insights data cited by The Standard, and removal orders in August topped 2,000 — an all-time high for Concord.
Source: Bay Area Brief / San Francisco Standard
An EOIR spokesperson told The Standard the agency is speeding up schedules because 'unnecessary delay hurts both aliens with meritorious claims and the American public who wish to see aliens with non-meritorious claims removed as quickly as possible.'
Lawsuit over records, and a shrinking bench
On October 16, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the National Immigration Project sued the Department of Justice and EOIR in the Northern District of California, saying the agencies ignored a July Freedom of Information Act request for the policies, scheduling data and in absentia orders behind the mega master dockets. 'EOIR is playing a dangerous game with people's lives,' staff attorney Jacob Gonzalez said. 'They are rushing thousands of immigrants through mass hearings, moving up court dates with little or no notice, and then ordering people deported in absentia when they don't show up.'
Source: Bay Area Brief / San Francisco Standard
The strain was flagged months earlier by U.S. Representative Mark DeSaulnier, whose district includes Concord. In a March 31 letter to the Justice Department, DeSaulnier said the San Francisco court began 2025 with 21 judges and was down to four after firings and early retirements, that the two courts together then faced a combined backlog of 177,827 cases with hearings already being scheduled years in advance, and that Concord would be one of only two federal immigration courts serving a Northern California region of more than 12 million people. He asked the department for the data behind the closure decision and for projected backlog figures — requests local officials say went largely unanswered.
Source: Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, U.S. House
Why this matters for immigrant families in Northern California
Immigration courts are administrative tribunals run by EOIR under the U.S. Attorney General — they are not part of the federal judicial branch, and immigration judges are Justice Department employees rather than lifetime-appointed judges. For families across the Bay Area and Northern California — including the region's large Punjabi and South Asian communities in the East Bay, San Jose and the Central Valley who travel to Concord for hearings — the practical effect of a 170,000-case backlog is years of waiting, hearings that can be moved forward on short notice, and a sharply higher risk of a removal order if a notice is missed or a hearing date changes. That is why the volunteer-attorney drive matters: a represented person is far better placed to track a moved hearing date and present an application than someone facing a mega master docket alone.
What happens next
The records lawsuit against DOJ and EOIR is pending in federal court, the National Lawyers Guild recruitment for Concord is open now, and the court's mega master schedule is continuing while the backlog stands at about 170,000 cases. No new courtrooms or additional Northern California immigration court have been announced. Anyone with a case in Concord should check their hearing date directly with EOIR rather than relying on an old notice, because observers say dates in this docket have been advanced with little warning.