RCFP, journalist urge San Diego Immigration Court to ensure full access to proceedings

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a California journalist are urging the San Diego Immigration Court to ensure full and lawful access to its immigration proceedings to both journalists and the general public.

In a letter sent to the court on June 10, 2025, the Reporters Committee and freelance journalist Kate Morrissey raised serious legal concerns with an incident in which Morrissey was improperly barred from a San Diego Immigration Court proceeding in May. 

The judge instructed Morrissey to leave the courtroom even though he did not make any specific findings that the immigration proceeding warranted closure of the courtroom. Other members of the public were not told to leave the courtroom.

In the letter, the Reporters Committee and Morrissey note that, in any hearing other than an exclusion hearing, an immigration judge may only exclude the public from the courtroom for a limited number of reasons, including “for the purpose of protecting witnesses, parties, or the public interest.” But none of those reasons applied in this case. The letter also states that under no circumstances does the law permit a judge to exclude some members of the public, but not others.

“Closing courtroom doors to a journalist attending a public immigration proceeding is unlawful and damaging to public transparency and efforts to monitor the government’s actions in an area of intense public interest,” the letter concludes. “We respectfully request that San Diego Immigration Court judges and staff make every effort to ensure that lawful public access to proceedings is protected moving forward and seek to avoid recurrences of Ms. Morrissey’s unlawful exclusion on May 22.”

Journalists covering immigration can learn more about accessing immigration proceedings and records in the Reporters Committee’s Immigration Reporting Legal Guide, which is available in English and Spanish. Journalists with additional legal or newsgathering questions should contact the Reporters Committee’s free Legal Hotline, which includes a 24/7 emergency line.