Hundreds of San Francisco Immigration Cases Resumed After Decades

(SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA) Hundreds of long-paused San Francisco immigration cases have been pulled back onto active dockets under the Trump administration beginning in 2025, jolting immigrants who thought their cases were dormant or effectively resolved and throwing lawyers and courts into a new wave of motions to recalendar. The Department of Homeland Security, led by Secretary Kristi Noem under President Trump, directed government attorneys to file motions to “recalendar” cases that immigration judges had administratively closed, some for more than a decade, part of a wider effort that attorneys say is reviving thousands of immigration cases nationally.

The sudden shift has left people who built lives in the United States facing renewed deportation risk after years of stability. Some had married U.S. citizens and were preparing to adjust their status through the green card process. Others had renewed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections multiple times. In the most extraordinary examples cited by attorneys, the government has sought to restart proceedings for people whose former lawyers have retired or died — and in a handful of cases, for immigrants who have passed away. The recalendar push comes as the national immigration court backlog stood at 3,629,627 active cases by the end of March 2025, a record load for the nation’s immigration courts.

The human impact in the Bay Area has been immediate. Jesus Adan Rico, 29, a Dreamer and Chino High School graduate, learned eight weeks ago that his deportation case was revived despite renewing DACA at least four times.

“No matter what we do, no matter how far we go in school, in our jobs and with our families, it doesn’t matter. It is all hanging by a thread,” he said, describing the shock of seeing his file spring back to life after years of quiet.

He added, “It has been 10 years. And all of a sudden our lives are on hold again, at the mercy of these people that think I have no right to be here.”

For Maria Torres, who came to the U.S. at age 2, the notice arrived as she prepared for her green card interview after marrying a U.S. citizen. Her case had been administratively closed, a common step judges and government lawyers have used since the 1970s to pause proceedings when someone appears likely to secure relief or when it makes sense to manage crowded dockets. The recalendar motion meant her immigration judge could restore the case to the active calendar, putting her removal case back on track while she was trying to complete the lawful permanent resident process through Form I-485 (Form I-485). Attorneys in San Francisco say Torres’ situation is far from unique, as dozens of similar motions are landing at once.

The practical effect has been a scramble. Lawyers describe a flood of government filings arriving with little individualized analysis, sometimes addressed to counsel who no longer practice or to clients who have not heard from the court in years. David L. Wilson, an immigration attorney in Minneapolis, said he received a batch of 25 government motions at the end of May, with more arriving every few weeks.

“The court is drowning in these motions because we’re trying to resist these,” Wilson said.

One of his cases involves a client from El Salvador whose case was closed in 2006 after the client received Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian designation that can halt deportations for nationals of countries facing crises.

The revived cases do not guarantee new hearings will be scheduled immediately. But they reopen the threat of removal, and if a person fails to respond or does not appear in court after a case is recalendared, an immigration judge can order deportation “in absentia,” a ruling that can trigger a years-long bar on legal return. Attorneys in San Francisco and other cities say they have been forced into the role of “private investigators,” digging through old files, tracing phone numbers and addresses, and trying to reach clients who may have moved several times since their cases went quiet. Some retired lawyers are asking active practitioners to step in on files they closed long ago; others are filing emergency motions to keep clients off new hearing dockets while they assess options.

The Trump administration’s message is clear, according to one former senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

“They are getting the largest pool possible of people that they can remove, and removing them from the country. And what stands in the way from that is a working due process of an immigration system,” said Jason Hauser, former chief of staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That approach marks a stark break from recent practice, when prosecutors and judges often agreed to place low-priority cases on hold to let people pursue visas, asylum, or other relief.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security defend the recalendar campaign as a return to the law after an era of broader prosecutorial discretion.

“Biden chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including criminals, into the country and used prosecutorial discretion to indefinitely delay their cases and allow them to illegally remain in the United States. Now, President Trump and Secretary Noem are following the law and resuming these illegal aliens’ removal proceedings and ensuring their cases are heard by a judge,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson.

The directive, she said, aims to ensure that people with outstanding removal orders or dormant cases receive a formal adjudication rather than resting in administrative closure.

In San Francisco, the policy shift has overlapped with heightened enforcement debate. In October 2025, a planned immigration enforcement surge in the Bay Area was abruptly paused after a late-night call between San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and President Trump. White House spokesperson Carolyn Levitt confirmed the operation was called off, though it remains unclear whether that decision affects the broader effort to revive old immigration cases. For now, attorneys say, the filings to recalendar keep coming, pushing already strained courts and legal aid clinics to triage long-settled files alongside urgent new cases.

The mechanics behind these reopened files stem from administrative closure, a docket-management tool that immigration judges have used since the 1970s to take cases off active calendars. Judges typically closed a case when a person was on track to gain another form of relief or when both sides agreed it did not need immediate attention. Some closures lasted months while a visa petition was pending; others lingered for years. Under the Trump administration’s approach in 2025, DHS attorneys have sought to undo those closures en masse, filing standardized motions to restore cases to calendars even where applicants have since married U.S. citizens, maintained DACA renewals, or left the United States.

Defense attorneys and legal service providers in Northern California say the scale is unprecedented. They report receiving dozens of recalendar motions at a time, often bundled by courthouse or by an attorney’s roster of old clients. The volume adds to a court system already managing a mountain of cases, with the 3,629,627-case backlog making routine scheduling a challenge. Some lawyers warn that immigrants with old addresses on file — or those who trust that their dormant cases remain dormant — could miss hearing notices and end up with in absentia orders. That outcome would carry serious consequences, including the possibility of immediate deportation and multi-year bars on legal reentry.

For people like Rico, the revived file is not just a legal headache. It disrupts work plans, school, and family commitments built during the years when their cases were set aside.

“No matter what we do, no matter how far we go in school, in our jobs and with our families, it doesn’t matter. It is all hanging by a thread,” he said.

His experience underscores how the policy change can ripple through daily life: landlords ask for updated documents, employers request proof of continued work authorization, and families reset timelines for milestones that seemed within reach before the recalendar notice arrived.

The reach of the new directive is also wide geographically. While San Francisco attorneys describe a rush of filings in local courts, similar accounts are emerging from other cities. Wilson’s example in Minneapolis — 25 motions at once, with more to follow — captures the pace that practitioners say is now routine. Each motion demands a response, and each response requires lawyers to reconstruct older files, request records from archives, and contact clients who may have changed phone numbers, moved out of state, or crossed borders. Because some cases date back more than a decade, the people involved may have new spouses, U.S.-born children, or different relief options than when their cases were first opened.

Supporters of the Trump administration’s strategy argue that restoring these cases promotes accountability by ensuring everyone completes the process before a judge. Critics counter that blanketing the system with recalendar motions reduces individualized justice to paper-pushing, even in cases where immigrants appear eligible for relief or have lived peacefully in the community for years. Hauser’s description of the goal — to assemble “the largest pool possible of people that they can remove” — captures the scale of change underway, while McLaughlin’s statement underscores the administration’s stance that resuming cases aligns with federal law and addresses what officials describe as prior overuse of discretion.

In practice, the burden falls on immigration courts and local legal networks already stretched thin. Some Bay Area attorneys report working late to file emergency oppositions, asking judges to deny recalendar requests where people have clear paths to status or where a return to the calendar would serve no purpose. Others are preparing clients for renewed hearings while simultaneously pursuing permanent residence through marriage, or for DACA renewals while appealing old removal orders. The contradictions can be stark: a person may be eligible for lawful permanent residency through a spouse while standing for a hearing that could end in a removal order if the timing goes wrong.

The risk of administrative error is not theoretical. Lawyers recount receiving motions addressed to deceased clients or to clients who long ago adjusted their status, and in some instances discovering that original counsel has retired or relocated with no forwarding details. That forces a search for successor counsel and slows responses, increasing the risk of missed deadlines. When notices go to outdated mailing addresses, immigrants may never learn that their cases have been restored to the active docket until an in absentia order has already been issued.

In San Francisco’s immigrant communities, the reaction ranges from confusion to fear. People who had settled into routines — renewing work authorizations, paying taxes, and raising children in local schools — now ask what a recalendar notice means for their future. Legal clinics are hosting evening sessions to explain the process and remind people to update addresses with the court. DACA recipients like Rico, who have complied with every renewal requirement, now face the mental strain of seeing an old removal file stir back to life, with no clear timeline for resolution.

As the situation develops, one unknown is how much room immigration judges will allow for discretion in the face of mass recalendar efforts. Some judges could deny motions where DHS fails to show specific reasons beyond a generic directive; others may grant them as a matter of course, given the administration’s stated policy. What is clear, attorneys say, is that the effort affects a cross-section of immigrants: longtime residents with deep ties, people who recently updated their status, and families in the middle of paperwork for adjustment through Form I-485 (Form I-485) who believed their cases would remain off the active docket while they waited.

The Bay Area’s brief reprieve from an enforcement surge in October 2025 did little to slow the legal undertow. Even as large-scale operations paused after the late-night call between Mayor Daniel Lurie and President Trump, the pipeline of motions continued, according to attorneys tracking filings. White House spokesperson Carolyn Levitt confirmed that the operation was called off, but she did not indicate any shift in the broader strategy to reopen administratively closed cases nationwide. For immigrants in San Francisco and far beyond, that means another day scanning the mailbox, another call to a lawyer, and another round of uncertainty in a system already carrying more than 3.6 million active cases.

The coming months will reveal how far the Trump administration pushes the recalendar program and whether immigration courts can absorb the added load without compounding delays. For now, the numbers are daunting, the timeline is undefined, and the stakes are personal. “It has been 10 years,” Rico said. His words echo across courthouses and living rooms as families weigh what to do next, trying to hold steady as cases once thought finished pull them back into a process that shows no sign of easing.