From her bench, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stared at an assistant U.S. attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security. \u201cI\u2019m finally seeing you in person,\u201d she told him during a hearing last week in Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jevechius Bernardoni responded sheepishly. \u201cYes, your honor,\u201d he said. Bernardoni had been summoned before the District Court for the Northern District of California\u00a0in haste, after the government seemingly disobeyed an order from Gonzalez Rogers. In response, the judge issued a rare threat to hold the government in contempt. Looking down upon him from her high seat, she wasn\u2019t hiding her annoyance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The government lawyer would be right to feel his prospects were poor that day in court. The Northern District of California is one of the few places where Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not winning much. Over the last year in wood-paneled rooms in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and McKinleyville (just north of Eureka), representatives of President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of Justice have found themselves on their heels. In an avalanche of cases brought by Bay Area attorneys, these courts have issued a slew of rulings that have stymied the administration\u2019s immigration policies locally.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez Rogers threatened to hold the DHS in contempt for defying her order not to deport a migrant woman. Without telling the judge, the agency had placed the woman in expedited removal proceedings. In a hearing set for Feb. 24, she would have to convince a DHS employee that she deserved to stay in the U.S. If she failed the interview, she could be deported within days.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez Rogers massaged her temple and shook her head. She asked why the government had disobeyed her order not to attempt to deport the woman. Bernardoni\u2019s explanation was Kafkaesque: The judge\u2019s initial order prohibited DHS from detaining the migrant again; it didn\u2019t explicitly preclude deporting her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The argument was unpersuasive. \u201cYou cannot circumvent the protections that have been afforded [by this court],\u201d Gonzales Rogers said. She ordered Bernardoni to make sure DHS would not proceed with expedited removal proceedings against the migrant. She gave the government a day to respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not waiting for you anymore,\u201d she told the assistant U.S. attorney.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was unsurprised by the government lawyer\u2019s argument,\u201d Jordan Weiner, the attorney representing the migrant woman, later told The Standard. \u201cOverall, I think the government attorney\u2019s noncompliance with the order was less about flouting the order and more about willful ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next day Bernardoni answered the judge. DHS would postpone its interview with the migrant. For a moment, the court had stopped the gears of the deportation machine.<\/p>\n
\u2018San Franciscans are resilient\u2019<\/p>\n
The scene in Gonzalez Roger\u2019s courtroom was but the latest act in a months-long drama in which Bay Area lawyers have fought dozens of ICE detentions in court. Leading the effort is a legal community of nonprofits and private lawyers working pro bono, with financial support from the city of San Francisco and the state of California, a coalition that has emerged in the year since the Trump administration began enacting its mass deportation campaign.<\/p>\n
One of the main tools these lawyers have is to petition for writ of habeas corpus, a right embedded in the U.S. Constitution that affords the incarcerated a chance to challenge the legality of their detention. According to HabeasDockets.org (opens in new tab)<\/a>, these petitions have been persuasive; more than 80 habeas corpus orders have been issued by Northern District of California courts since January 2025. Some extracted migrants from detention just hours after ICE arrested them. Weiner, the interim executive director at La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco, has won many habeas orders and is currently litigating more than 30 such cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n This mirrors a national trend of habeas petitions being filed in unprecedented numbers. According to an analysis by ProPublica (opens in new tab)<\/a>,\u00a0 20,000-plus habeas petitions were filed in the first year of Trump\u2019s second term, more than in the last three administrations combined.<\/p>\n
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The Northern District of California ordered the California City Detention Facility, the state\u2019s largest ICE detention center, to provide better medical care and warm blankets. | Source: Marcio Jose Sanchez\/ Associated Press<\/p>\n