Matthew Hoppock
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hoppock.bsky.social
Matthew Hoppock
@hoppock.bsky.social
1.3K followers 180 following 230 posts
FOIA and Immigration Law and dumb jokes.
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Reposted by Matthew Hoppock
ER doc here! This is a lie. Wait times are up because the American healthcare system is an unsustainable business model and a for-profit national healthcare system just doesn’t work. These problems will continue to get worse until we change that system. It literally has nothing to do with immigrants
Vance: "If you're an American citizen & you've been to the hospital in the last few years, you've probably noticed wait times are especially large & very often somebody who's there in the ER is an illegal alien. Why do those people get healthcare benefits at hospitals paid for by American citizens?"
Reposted by Matthew Hoppock
It’s not a crime to be in this country as an undocumented person. It’s a civil violation.

But you know what is a crime? Taking a bribe from undercover agents in exchange for the promise of government contracts WHEN YOU’RE THE FCKING BORDER CZAR.
Reposted by Matthew Hoppock
Axios @axios.com · Sep 4
The Justice Department's acting deputy chief was caught on a hidden camera saying that the government will "redact every Republican" from an Epstein client list and "leave all the liberal, Democratic people."
DOJ deputy chief: government will "redact every Republican" from Epstein client list
The deputy chief later said his comments were not based on what he's learned from his role at the DOJ.
www.axios.com
If you said zero, you are correct. No mention of the government's campaign to eradicate LGBTQ folks from existence. So if you're applying for asylum from Uganda and are gay, you're gonna have to prove that this "inherently reliable" report is wrong - or you get deported. A complete failure.
Uganda is one of the worst places in the world to be gay. Here's the summary from the last year's report - they lead off with Uganda's use of the death penalty for gay folks. How many words do you think are spent on that in this year's report?
These reports are used by immigration adjudicators in determining whether a person is in danger in their home country. They're deemed "inherently reliable." And for decades each country's report would address conditions for women and conditions for LGBTQ folks. That content is now gone. An example:
We finally have the State Department Human Rights reports 6 months late, and it's hard to overstate how bad they are. These will get people killed. Specifically, women and LGBTQ folks have just been written out of these reports. Good luck applying for asylum... www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Rubio recasts long-held beliefs with cuts to U.S. human rights reports
The State Department’s annual human rights reports arrive a half-year late with significant cuts and little fanfare from America’s top diplomat.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Matthew Hoppock
A Chicago woman went to immigration court. Her case was dismissed; she and her infant were taken by federal agents who turned her over to contractor MVM. They spent five days confined at the Sonesta O'Hare hotel without communication to the outside world.

My first byline at @injusticewatch.org:
ICE contractor locked an immigrant and her baby at an O’Hare hotel for five days
Valentina Galvis' detention at a hotel raises questions about the types of facilities being turned into de facto detention centers as the Trump administration ramps up immigration detention.
www.injusticewatch.org
lol at the Whitehouse spokesperson responding to my comments on stripping Rosie O'Donnell of her citizenship by only pointing out that I've donated to Democrats. My dude. Get a better spokesperson, there's so much better material on me. www.cnn.com/2025/07/18/u...
I should have read more closely. Yes, FPB and OIL are different branches (although FPB does defend some agency actions that involve immigration). Denaturalization is traditionally brought by OIL attorneys. I assume they're having the same attrition problems.
Also, an immigration judge at the Concord immigration court was fired mid-hearing today. She received a message during the hearing saying she had been fired. Had to stop the hearing. EOIR is in absolute chaos.
Not sure why, but Matthew J. O'Brien was listed as the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge at the Annandale Immigration Court until this week. He's no longer listed as an ACIJ at all. Might have been moved to another part of the DOJ? Hard to imagine that they fired him a month after re-hiring him idk
Trump's DOJ has re-hired former immigration judge Matthew O'Brien (formerly with FAIR and IRLI). Terminated in 2022 from his IJ position during his probationery period, now he's been hired in a supervisory role. ACIJ over Annandale.
www.justice.gov/eoir/office-...
Just got an email that the Criminal Justice Act ("CJA") fund is depleted and CJA attorneys (appointed to represent federal defendants) can't be paid. It says to keep submitting vouchers and they'll pay "as soon as funding is available." What an absolute nightmare. www.uscourts.gov/about-federa...
CJA Panel Attorney Funds Information FY 2025
As of the week of July 7, 2025, Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel attorney funds have been depleted. Panel payments will be deferred until funds become available. Please continue to file, process, and ...
www.uscourts.gov
Reposted by Matthew Hoppock
Grok is a full blown nazi now.
She has no authority to "guide" IJs in how to apply BIA precedent, no authority to set precedent herself, no authority to pick out unfortunate decisions she wishes didn't exist and come up with ways to ignore them. Lawlessness.
To be clear, the Attorney General definitely has the authority to say these things in a published precedential decision. Then, folks agrieved by that lawlessness can take those decisions to federal court and the AG's lawyer will show up to defend it. But the acting EOIR Director?
In short: asylum law is made up. It's not actually law. You don't have to enforce it if you don't feel like it. It's just vibes. Ignore the law if you want, IJs, and your Acting Director has your back. We'll come up with some tortured rationale about how precedent isn't really precedent.
EOIR's acting director has sent a memo to immigration judges telling them they can ignore two critical laws about asylum for domestic abuse survivors and "administrative closure." Only the BIA or the Attorney General can overrule agency precedent. What this means 🧵 www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...
www.justice.gov
A lot of the reporting on the denaturalization priorities memo hasn't ben very thorough and some pieces have gotten the premise wrong. This WaPo piece does a pretty good job describing what the memo actually means and puts it into context. Gift link. wapo.st/44y1NTp
Immigration lawyers criticize Justice Department push to pull citizenship
The Department of Justice said it would prioritize seeking to strip citizenship from naturalized U.S. citizens in more cases.
wapo.st
To scare people into leaving on their own is my best guess. Or just the pure cruelty of it.
Reposted by Matthew Hoppock
The for-profit prison company GEO Group has surged in value under President Trump.

But despite its soaring fortunes, the ICE contractor has continued to resist having to pay detainees more than $1 a day for cleaning facilities where the government has forced them to live.

(Published March)
An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work.
GEO Group, whose stock is valued at $4 billion, says that state minimum wage laws don’t apply to the cleaning services that it’s asked detained migrants to perform at facilities where they’re kept.
www.propublica.org
Because instead of defending 1 lawsuit challenging an illegal new immigration policy, they get to defend thousands in various courts. So, I'm not sure who is going to have time on their hands to prosecute these cases, but we will see.
They straight up threatened "thousands" of denaturalization cases first term. I was told by two OIL attorneys at the time that they each had a stack of such cases on their desk. But they were busy defending the government's new policies. Last week's ruling on nationwide injunctions makes it worse.