San Francisco is about to lose one of its two immigration courts — and it's happening fast.

The federal government is closing the Montgomery Street immigration court by May 1, a full eight months ahead of its previously expected timeline. That leaves the city with just one functioning immigration court to handle what has been an already overwhelming caseload of asylum and deportation cases.

Let's set aside the heated political rhetoric around immigration for a moment and talk about what this actually means in practical terms: a massive bottleneck in an already glacially slow legal system.

Immigration courts across the country are drowning in backlogs — nationally, there are millions of pending cases, with average wait times stretching years. Cutting San Francisco's capacity in half doesn't make those cases disappear. It just means they pile up higher, cost more to adjudicate over time, and leave people — including those with legitimate claims and those the government wants to deport — in legal limbo for even longer.

There's a reasonable argument that consolidating court resources can improve efficiency. If the remaining court can absorb the caseload with adequate staffing and infrastructure, fine. But that's a big "if," and the federal government hasn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to managing bureaucratic transitions smoothly.

Here's the fiscal conservative take that nobody in Washington seems interested in hearing: due process isn't just a constitutional principle — it's also cheaper in the long run than chaotic, backlogged systems that generate endless appeals, re-hearings, and administrative tangles. Whether you want stricter enforcement or more open pathways, you need functioning courts to make either vision work.

Slashing court capacity without a clear plan to handle the displaced caseload isn't tough governance. It's just bad management dressed up as policy. San Franciscans of every political stripe should be asking: what's the actual plan here, and who's going to be accountable when the remaining court buckles under the weight?