The U.S. Department of Justice has officially closed the San Francisco Immigration Court months earlier than expected, transferring its operations to the Concord Immigration Court.
The sudden closure has caused uncertainty for thousands of immigrants whose cases were pending in San Francisco.
Immigration courts handle deportation proceedings, asylum claims, and other immigration-related hearings.
In a policy memorandum released today, just ahead of the Memorial Day holiday, the Trump administration announced that temporary visa holders seeking green cards should leave the United States and complete their immigration process through consular processing in their home countries.
But is adjustment of status completely off the table? No. While the government has made clear that individuals intending to immigrate to the United States are generally expected to pursue immigrant visas abroad, adjustment of status remains a discretionary pathway to a green card.
When deciding whether to exercise discretion to grant adjustment of status in the United States, USCIS officers will apply a “totality of the circumstances” analysis, weighing both favorable and unfavorable factors before reaching a decision.
Overview
For decades, Adjustment of Status has been one of the most reliable pathways to apply for a green card for immigrants already living in the U.S., who entered the country lawfully. This process has involved filing the I-485, remaining in the country while the green card case is pending, waiting for an interview, and receiving a final approval.
The ability to apply for adjustment of status has not been taken away with today’s announcement, however, the sense of security that applicants once had has been blurred.
The Policy Memorandum
In its policy memorandum, the government stressed that individuals admitted to the United States on temporary visas (tourist, student, work visas, etc.) are generally expected to leave the country rather than pursue Adjustment of Status from inside the U.S.
Instead, those wishing to remain in the U.S. permanently are expected to apply for an immigrant visa from abroad. But today’s announcement does not prevent those who qualify from seeking adjustment of status, although applicants should exercise greater caution and understand that certain factors may negatively affect their chances of approval.
For years, DACA gave hundreds of thousands of young immigrants a fragile kind of security: permission to work, build lives, and avoid deportation — at least temporarily.
That security just got weaker.
On April 24, 2026, the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals issued a new precedent decision saying that DACA status alone is not enough to end deportation proceedings. The case involved Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, a DACA recipient whose removal case had been terminated by an immigration judge because her DACA protection was still active. DHS appealed — and won.
A recent federal court decision has provided temporary relief for Ethiopian nationals in the United States who rely on Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The ruling marks a setback for the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back humanitarian immigration protections.
Key Developments
A federal judge in Massachusetts has postponed the termination of TPS for Ethiopians, finding that the government did not follow proper legal procedures when attempting to end the designation. The court emphasized that the decision did not adhere to the process required by Congress, raising concerns about how the termination was handled.
Under federal law, TPS is available to individuals whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflict, or other extraordinary events, providing eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
TPS was originally granted to Ethiopians in 2022 due to armed conflict and humanitarian conditions in the country. The designation allows eligible individuals to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.
Who Is Affected
More than 5,000 Ethiopian nationals currently benefit from TPS protections. Without the court’s intervention, many could have lost their work authorization and faced potential removal.
What Happens Next
The ruling does not permanently preserve TPS for Ethiopians. Instead, it temporarily blocks the termination while legal proceedings continue. The government may still attempt to end the designation if it follows proper procedures or prevails in court.
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States. TPS is a humanitarian program that allows people from countries affected by disasters or conflict to live and work in the U.S. legally, without fear of deportation.
This move comes as part of a broader effort to scale back immigration protections. The Supreme Court has already allowed the administration to reduce TPS protections for Venezuelan migrants, while a similar request involving Syrian immigrants is still pending.
Haiti was first granted TPS in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and the designation has been extended several times since. The administration set a termination date of February 3, 2026, arguing that conditions in Haiti have improved enough to allow the return of TPS holders.
Last December, five Haitian nationals challenged the decision, seeking to block the termination. A federal district court sided with them last month, finding that the decision to end protections may have been influenced in part by racial bias. The Justice Department appealed, but a divided three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., refused to halt the lower court’s ruling.
In an emergency filing with the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the lower courts had overstepped, interfering in “an area of wide Executive Branch latitude.”
A federal judge has issued a court order requiring that immigrants detained at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center in downtown Los Angeles be granted access to their attorneys in a timely manner.
The ruling comes after lawyers reported that detainees were frequently denied phone access, had in-person meetings canceled, and faced pressure to sign legal documents without private counsel.
The B‑18 facility, originally designed as a short-term holding space, lacks basic amenities such as beds, showers, and adequate medical services. Advocates say ICE has effectively turned it into a long-term detention site, restricting detainees’ ability to communicate with the outside world.
On November 12, 2025, a federal court ruling in the case Moody et al. v. Mayorkas et al. granted relief to new investors in the EB-5 program by halting the increased application fees introduced by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on April 1, 2024.
What fees were increased?
Here’s a quick breakdown of the fee changes that were challenged:
This week, the Justice Department announced that it has hired 36 new immigration judges — 11 permanent and 25 temporary — for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a key agency that handles immigration court proceedings in deportation cases.
What’s happening?
The hiring comes after several months of layoffs among immigration judges occurring earlier this year. In the past 10 months, EOIR fired more than 125 judges, causing delays in immigration court proceedings across the country.
The courts in Massachusetts and Illinois were among the most affected by these departures. The good news is these newly hired judges will begin serving across 16 states nationwide.
Who are the new judges?
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a troubling decision that could strip legal status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans currently living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
On Friday, the Court granted the Trump administration’s request to halt a lower court ruling that found the administration’s cancellation of TPS protections for Venezuelans unlawful. The unsigned order from the Court effectively allows the government to proceed, for now, with its plans to revoke temporary protections that had shielded Venezuelan nationals from deportation and granted them employment authorization.
TPS was created in 1990 as a humanitarian safeguard for individuals whose home countries are experiencing extraordinary crises such as armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other temporary but severe disruptions. Venezuela was designated for TPS in 2021 under President Biden, in response to the country’s severe economic collapse, widespread human rights abuses, and political instability.
Since then, approximately 300,000 Venezuelans have relied on that protection to live and work legally in the U.S., building lives, paying taxes, and raising families.
Trump Administration Moves to Strip Venezuela’s TPS Designation
But the political tides have shifted. When the Trump administration returned to office, it appointed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. Earlier this year, Noem moved to revoke Venezuela’s TPS designation, arguing that conditions in the country had improved and that continuing the program was no longer in the national interest. That decision sparked immediate legal challenges. A coalition of Venezuelan TPS recipients and advocacy groups sued, claiming the administration’s actions were arbitrary, rushed, and in violation of federal law.
In a significant victory for civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups, a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s decision to temporarily block federal immigration agents from conducting immigration-related arrests in Los Angeles without reasonable suspicion.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling late Friday, marking a major legal development in the ongoing battle over immigration enforcement and constitutional protections.
At the heart of the case is the question of whether federal agents can detain individuals based solely on generalized characteristics such as race, ethnicity, or language. The appeals court was clear: they cannot.
A Firm Rejection of Racial Profiling
The three-judge panel ruled that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents cannot use factors like “apparent race, ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, particular location, and type of work” as the basis for reasonable suspicion to stop an individual. Even taken together, the court stated, these characteristics form only a broad profile and fail to meet the legal standard required for a lawful stop.
“We agree with the district court that…these factors do not demonstrate reasonable suspicion for any particular stop,” the panel wrote, emphasizing the constitutional protections that apply to all individuals, regardless of immigration status.
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