The Federal News Network broke the news last month that the “National Archives to transition out of three federal records centers.” NARA is proposing to close down the regional facilities in San Bruno/San Francisco, Chicago, and Seattle. Sources say that records may be removed from these facilities as early as this September and relocate its holdings to facilities including locations in the Midwest/Missouri region and other designated federal record centers.
Last week, the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA), and the Society of American Archivists (SAA) issued a joint statement expressing alarm over the closure of multiple National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facilities around the country. Congressman Kevin Mullin (CA-15), who represents the San Bruno area, also released a statement of concern regarding the proposed closure.
All of NARA’s regional facilities are critical to preservation of permanent records of the US government.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has circulated plans to move out of three of its records-holding facilities over the next few years — a decision the agency said will cut costs and reduce its real estate portfolio, although questions remain about how agency employees will be affected.
An internal agency email circulated on Tuesday to National Archives staff, obtained by Federal News Network, outlined the agency’s decision to shutter federal records centers in the Chicago and San Francisco/San Bruno regions and begin moving records out of its center in Seattle.
The San Bruno facility holds important records especially to people in that geographical region. So moving those collections to another facility (in San Francisco’s case, NARA is proposing moving those collections to St Louis!) would have a massively negative effect on access and untold hardships on the citizens most in need of access. “National Archives at San Francisco holds permanent historical records dating back to the 1850s, created by federal agencies and courts in northern and central California, Nevada (except for Clark County), Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Navy bases in the Pacific, and the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Our records are a major primary resource for the study of Asian-Pacific immigration, environmental and natural history, naval and military activity in the Pacific, the Native American experience, and many other aspects of U.S. history.”
Among the 100,000 cubic feet of documents in the San Bruno facility — thousands of which have not been digitized — there are:
- <
li>hundreds of thousands of immigration and naturalization materials for people from over eighty countries, including extensive Chinese Exclusion case files — one of the most comprehensive collections of files connected to the historical immigration through Angel Island;
- German, Italian, and Japanese American internment files;
- Public Health records;
- Mexican Land grant cases;
- Hawaiian Birth Certificates and citizenship cases;
- tribal information from tribes across CA and the region;
- and arrival case files for Russian Jews and other immigrants from throughout the world.
Urgent action is needed to stave off this closure and assure the permanent records are housed and accessible in the communities most in need of access to those records.
What you can do about it?
- Sign the change.gov petition started by the group Save Our National Archives (SONA).
- Write a letter to your Senators and Representative (find their contact information here). I have drafted a letter that you are welcome to copy/paste/crib from. It is important to note that my letter was sent to Edward Forst, Acting Archivist of the United States (ArchivistOfTheUnitedStates@nara.gov). But I also cc’d my Senators and Representative, as well as the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Congressional committees with oversight of NARA, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. AND, since most Congressional committee work is done by the professional staff who support committees’ work, I also emailed the staffers for the 2 oversight committees handling the issue:
HSGAC D: christopher_mulkins@hsgac.senate.gov
HSGAC R: william_henderson@paul.senate.govCORE D: emily.burns@mail.house.gov
Core R: christian.hoehner@mail.house.gov - Get the word out to your personal and social media networks.
Media coverage:
- Save Our National Archives (SONA) Press release
- “Exclusive: The Bay Area’s National Archives Office Is Closing. Researchers Are Worried | KQED.” June 26, 2026.<.li>
- Friedman, Drew. (June 25, 2026). “National Archives to transition out of three federal records centers”. Federal News Network.
- Council of the Midwest Archives Conference. (June 9, 2026)
- “Chicago’s history packed up as feds prepare National Archives exit.” Damon R. Sheffield. HoodLine. July 24, 2026.
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