At least one of the people arrested in San Francisco immigration court in May now faces deportation after federal attorneys had his case transferred to a judge in San Bernardino County, one with a track record of harsher rulings on asylum cases.
The 20-year-old asylum-seeker (who has asked to remain anonymous) was previously in asylum proceedings in San Francisco under U.S. Immigration Court Judge Jeremiah Johnson, said Simran Kaur, his Tracy-based immigration attorney.
Johnson granted asylum to almost 89 percent of cases that appeared before him between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which gathers and publishes immigration data. He denied just over 11 percent of cases during that time period.
By contrast, the asylum-seeker’s new judge, U.S. Immigration Court Judge Ravit Halperin, of the Adelanto Immigration Court, denied 90 percent of cases between fiscal years 2023 and 2024, according to TRAC. During that time, Halperin worked at an immigration court in Sacramento.
For one year in 2022, both Johnson and Halperin worked in San Francisco, allowing for a direct comparison between the two judges. That fiscal year, in the same court, with similar asylum applicants, Halperin denied 78 percent of cases. Johnson denied less than 8 percent.
For Kaur’s client, the change of judge was the difference between his asylum case continuing to be investigated, and that client being put at risk of removal.
That the man ended up 400 miles away from San Francisco, facing deportation proceedings in front of a much more conservative judge, shows how the Department of Homeland Security’s new tactics may fast-track deportations, San Francisco immigration lawyers said.
DHS attorneys ask for dismissals
The trouble started, Kaur said, on May 27, when her client arrived for a routine hearing at San Francisco immigration court to find that a federal attorney moved to dismiss his asylum case.
These motions to dismiss are a tactic that the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration is using to fast-track asylum-seekers out of the United States.
If a person’s asylum case is dismissed and they do not have another legal way of staying, they are in legal limbo, without the protection from deportation that the asylum process grants while a person’s case is being investigated.
Johnson, the San Francisco judge, denied the federal attorney’s dismissal motion, keeping Kaur’s client protected until their case was completed.
But Homeland Security found a way to get a second opinion.
After the court hearing, ICE arrested Kaur’s client and kept him in detention, despite Johnson’s denial. This, too, is part of a larger pattern. Over the past month, ICE agents have routinely arrested asylum-seekers in San Francisco immediately after their court hearings.
Kaur’s client was then sent to be detained at the Golden State Annex in McFarland, about 30 miles north of Bakersfield. His case was heard at an immigration court close by, in Adelanto.
Though transferring an asylum-seeker’s case based on location is not unusual, the consequence in this case is that DHS was able to file the exact same request for dismissal that Johnson had already denied — this time in front of a more receptive judge.
When Kaur’s client appeared in the Adelanto Immigration Court on June 11, the DHS attorney moved to dismiss her client’s case and this time, Judge Halperin accepted the motion.
In doing so, she essentially overruled the San Francisco judge and put Kaur’s client in line for deportation.
Kaur said she was unaware of any changed circumstances in her client’s case that would have explained the new ruling. Her client entered the United States in January 2024, and filed his application for asylum in May of that year. He claimed asylum based on his political activism through a Sikh nationalist political party in India.
Asylum rates vary drastically across state
Asylum approval rates differ drastically between courts: In San Francisco, several judges have rates above 90 percent for granting asylum, for instance. In Adelanto, where Kaur’s client was sent, only one judge grants asylum more than 50 percent of the time.
This difference in approval rates can be significantly impacted by factors well beyond the philosophies of different judges. In Sacramento, for example, 81 percent of the asylum seekers Halperin judged had an attorney, which is key to winning a case. In San Francisco, 97 percent of the people whose cases came before Johnson did. Other factors, like the nationality of the asylum seeker, can also matter.
The TRAC data also only tracks the decision made on someone’s asylum claim, at their final hearing. It does not track procedural decisions along the way, like the recent increase in motions to dismiss asylum claims.
Dept. of Justice telling judges to play along
Federal attorneys are moving increasingly to dismiss asylum cases and trigger deportations, according to lawyers who handle these cases. The Department of Justice published recent guidance to encourage immigration judges to accept these motions to dismiss. In San Francisco, judges are not always playing along.
Mission Local attended three court hearings on June 10 in San Francisco immigration court. During each hearing, DHS attorneys moved to dismiss cases. In response, in all three cases, Johnson or another San Francisco judge refused.
But if an asylum-seeker is put in detention, which at least 10 people, including Kaur’s client, have been, despite their judges’ decision to keep their asylum cases in motion, none of the six detention facilities in use for migrants in California are located near San Francisco.
For Milli Atkinson, an immigration specialist with the Bar Association of San Francisco, the intent is clear: She knows of at least one other asylum-seeker who was arrested in San Francisco, only to be transferred and have their case dismissed in a different court. “It is very concerning to see them using the system this way, to evade the original judge’s jurisdiction and ignore the SF judge’s decisions,” Atkinson wrote in a text message to Mission Local.
Kaur said her client is appealing the dismissal of his asylum case. As of Thursday afternoon, Kaur’s client was still in detention.
These Federal Attorneys should be named and shamed.
People need to talk about:
Remember they said you couldn’t talk about legalization for long-term immigrants till the border was closed.
Well, it’s closed; but we hear nothing about legalizing, everyone is locked up or deported.
Maybe somebody could bring up birth- right citizenship given to people like Trump and Miller.
Politics 101: the road to justice for immigrants (and trans people for that matter) runs through the electorate at large. Democrats insist upon taking the Republican bait on both issues, continuing to ignore the deteriorating circumstances of working voters.
Trump thrives when Democrats allow him to set the terms of their engagement with him, which inevitably benefit Trump and further wedges the Democrats from the voters.
Look, over there, a Democratic Socialist just won the NYC mayoral primary! Dems know what needs to be done now to check this existential threat.