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San Francisco’s official stance as a bulwark against President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on illegal immigration here and across the country has little bearing on the work of the federal immigration court located in The City.
Nonetheless, the state’s second busiest immigration court — out of four — is less likely to deport people than the far busier Los Angeles court, according to the latest court data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
“There’s tremendous disparities in results depending on who the judge is,” said Francisco Ugarte, the only lawyer with the Public Defender’s Office tasked with defending people from deportation in San Francisco. Most cases in immigration court have no lawyers as there is no government requirement to provide defendants with legal representation, unlike in criminal courts.
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