On Friday, Judges Amber George, Jeremiah Johnson, Louis Gordon, Shuting Chen and Patrick Savage were fired from San Francisco's immigration court, which at the start of the year had more than 20 judges, according to Milli Atkinson, the director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program with the Bar Association of San Francisco.
The government lawyer knew what was coming as she stood inside a courtroom and texted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent waiting in a corridor a few feet away. "I can't do this," the lawyer said in a text message as she looked at her docket of cases. "This is a new emotional load." "I understand," the agent responded. "Hopefully we meet again in a better situation."
In October, Immigration and Customs Enforcement made just seven arrests at San Francisco immigration courts, a steep reduction after months of routinely detaining immigrants after their hearings. There have been no arrests of immigrants attending hearings at the immigration court at 630 Sansome St. since Oct. 3, according to Milli Atkinson, a lawyer with the San Francisco Bar Association who closely monitors ICE actions there. At 100 Montgomery St., the city's other immigration courthouse, the last arrest recorded by Mission Local was on Aug. 20.
(Spencer Platt / Getty Images) Lawyers and advocates fear about 1,000 Central American children, including dozens in California, are at risk of being deported to dangerous situations in their home countries before finishing their immigration court proceedings. They believe the U.S. government is now expanding their list of hundreds of children across the country, which started with children from Guatemala, to include those from Honduras and El Salvador. Lawyers for some children saw their scheduled hearings disappear from the immigration court calendars in recent weeks.
