The Trump team’s egregious strategy of redefinition

For the preponderance part we do not first see and then define we define first and then see In the great blooming buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our practices has already defined for us and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our heritage Walter Lippmann Definitions matter How we define events people and situations influences how we react to them No one knows this better than Donald Trump Which is one reason we should identify what definitions imply and whether they illumine or disguise All politicians define or redefine in strategic solutions but the Trump administration s efforts reach new levels of audacity and insolence Numerous examples exist They seek for instance to define antisemitism so that it includes almost any criticism of the Israeli governing body They profess that Ukraine started the war with Russia and that China controls the Panama Canal They in recent times proposed to redefine the word harm in the Endangered Species Act so it would refer only to the direct killing or injury of targeted animals with a trap a gun or certain other weapon The act would no longer protect endangered species from habitat loss which is by far their main threat caused by waste drilling logging and wetland destruction But perhaps the majority of egregious examples of this administration s redefinition strategies exist in its discourse about the deportation of Venezuelan displaced persons to El Salvador The face of these deportations though not the only victim has become Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia a Maryland resident who entered the United States to escape a Venezuelan gang was in the country legally has no criminal record and was arrested and flown to a prison in El Salvador without due process The administration first claimed the deportation was an administrative error This definition which was affirmed by numerous Trump spokespeople and by several courts including the Supreme Court might have been a winning strategy had they chosen to say they would correct their mistakes retrieved Abrego Garcia given him due process and then decided whether to deport him Instead Stephen Miller a top Trump advisor rejected that definition and claimed Abrego Garcia was deported because he was a violent gang member The administration then defined this situation as a national protection issue which grants the president great latitude to act as he sees fit and an illegal immigration issue which deflects attention from the rule-of-law concern that Abrego Garcia was denied due process These redefinitions are attempts to justify a deportation the administration had previously admitted was a mistake The efforts to redefine were not limited to residents statements The administration also attempted in judicial arguments to redefine key terms in Judge James Boasberg s order that prohibited Abrego Garcia s and others deportation Boasberg describes these redefinition efforts in a written opinion that shows the administration demonstrated a willful disregard for his order such that probable cause exists to find the Leadership in criminal contempt When Boasberg issued the order the individuals it concerned were already on flights headed to El Salvador though they had been offered no opportunity to vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court as the law requires Despite Boasberg s directive the establishment transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the order into a Salvadoran mega-prison To justify its violation authorities lawyers attempted to redefine a central term in the order removal Their argument in Boasberg s words was that by forbidding them from removing the individuals the order prohibited only flying the individuals outside of the United States not the further act of relinquishing custody of them into the hands of a foreign governing body The regime thus claimed they had not violated Boasberg s order because the airplanes were outside U S airspace before he issued it Boasberg to his credit dismantles this attempt to redefine He notes that in a separate event five days earlier the same lawyers had argued that to effectuate a departure or removal the alien must lawfully enter another country because the fact that he is physically on foreign soil is not alone sufficient to establish that he has legally departed the United States When it suited their interests in one scenario they argued that removal meant only to delivery someone outside of the country When it suited their interests in another matter they argued that removal required placement into the jurisdiction of another country Boasberg then refers to oral directives delivered during the hearing that preceded the written order When a administration lawyer stated that people already in the air would not be removed Boasberg replied I would assume that means they will not be removed from the planes and will be brought back once the planes land in El Salvador In another exchange he clarified further those people need to be returned to the United States However that s accomplished whether turning around a plane or not dis embarking anyone on the plane I leave to you But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with straightaway Jeffery Bineham The cabinet s attempt to redefine removal thus contradicted two statements that indicated clearly what Boasberg meant by the term Trump and his supporters know an critical principle of persuasion if you repeat a definition often enough no matter what it is people will believe it But what works in the court of masses opinion does not necessarily work in a court of law Boasberg concludes that the governing body s proposed definition of removal flies in the face of the overwhelming context provided by numerous exchanges throughout the hearing We should examine critically the Trump administration s effort to define and redefine the great blooming buzzing confusion of the world Sometimes redefinition is necessary and justified Sometimes it opens us to new perspectives and insights And sometimes as Judge Boasberg demonstrates it is just a lie Jeffery L Bineham of St Paul is an emeritus professor in the Judy C Pearson Department of Communication Studies at St Cloud State University The post The Trump club s egregious strategy of redefinition appeared first on MinnPost