The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the National Immigration Project filed suit Oct. 15 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The groups say the federal Executive Office for Immigration Review did not meet deadlines for responding to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted July 15. They say the government has released no records.

The request seeks policies, communications, scheduling information, details about which immigration courts hold the hearings and data on deportation orders issued when immigrants do not appear. The groups say those records could help explain why the large hearings are being scheduled and how they affect people facing immigration proceedings.

The hearings have expanded at the Concord immigration court since June. Data collected by court observer and analyst Jere Ramsey show 17 such hearings in September. From June through September, an average of 80 immigrants were scheduled for each one, according to Ramsey’s data.

Immigration attorneys say the format can undermine people’s ability to defend themselves. Some immigrants learn of hearings only weeks beforehand, or may not receive notice, and cases previously scheduled years in the future can be moved up with little time to prepare. The groups also raise concerns about limited access to interpreters and whether judges can review each person’s case individually in crowded proceedings.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that operates immigration courts, recommended in 2017 that group hearings include no more than 25 people, according to the lawsuit.

Missing a hearing can have severe consequences: a judge may order someone deported in absentia. Lawyers’ Committee attorney Jacob Gonzalez said he has heard of immigrants being ordered deported after they could not hear a judge call their names because of language barriers. A failure to appear can also end a person’s ability to seek legal status in the United States.

“We want to make sure laws are being applied in a fair way such that people have notice and can actually defend themselves,” Gonzalez said.

The office declined to answer questions about why it began holding the hearings or why it had not responded to the records request, saying it would not comment on litigation-related matters. The plaintiffs are seeking a court order requiring the agency to release the records. Gonzalez said they hope to receive a response by early 2027.

San Francisco immigrants have been required to attend immigration court in Concord since the San Francisco court closed in the fall. Gonzalez said the groups ultimately want the mass hearings to stop, but first need records to understand how the process is operating.

“The immigration system needs to be fundamentally fair,” he said, “regardless of your stance on immigration.”