MONDAY: When is a "deportation" something else?

MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2025

Uninquiring minds may not want to know: According to a new report in Mediaite, there she went again.

"Shame on you," the youngster said—though we wouldn't say that she "shouted." The report begins in the manner shown, and it provides the videotape:

‘Shame on You!’ Karoline Leavitt Scolds Reporter Over Question About White House’s Own Deportation Guidance

Andrew Feinberg, the White House correspondent for The Independent, went back and forth with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Monday about criteria DHS uses to classify illegal migrants as foreign combatants.

Leavitt shouted, “Shame on you!” at Feinberg at one point after he noted some migrants can be classified as members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua and become eligible for deportation to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act over symbols in their tattoos and their clothing.

The White House press secretary disagreed with Feinberg, who cited the federal government’s own documents on the matter.

Feinberg said, “You can get classified [as Tren de Aragua] by simply having certain symbols in your tattoos and wearing certain streetwear brands. That alone is enough to get someone classified as TDA and sent to El Salvador.”

Leavitt fired back, “That’s not true, actually, Andrew.”

The report continues from there. It includes a document which described what we would regard as the mind-boggling way a foreign national can acquire the eight "points" which get him classified as a Tren de Aragua gang member.

We'd never seen the criteria for "deportation to El Salvador" laid out that way. The criteria strike us as something out of a dystopian cartoon—but that's not this point of this post.

Once again, our basic question today would be this:

Why is this shipping of people to El Salvador being referred to as a "deportation?"

In a normal use of that term, this is what would typically happen, at least in the modern context:

A foreign national would be returned to his country of origin—to his country of citizenship.  What happens after he arrives there (in most cases, nothing) would be up to the local authorities.

That isn't what's happening with the people who are being shipped to El Salvador. In this case, they're being shipped to a nation which isn't their country of origin—and they're being shipped there for immediate imprisonment.

Should this act of rendition by referred to as a "deportation?" In the interest of accurate description, we'd be inclined to look for a different word. 

Along the way, we'd wonder on what legal authority the federal government is rendering people into a brutal foreign prison system without any attempt at establishing that the person in question has committed some sort of crime. 

What's the legal authority on which this somewhat peculiar practice is being conducted? We've seen no one ask.

Meanwhile, what's in a word? On last Thursday night's All In, Chris Hayes eschewed the word "prison" in discussing these renditions. He opted for "gulag" instead. 

(To see him do so, click here.)

That's the word we'd been using! At the end of the segment, Hayes was praised by a guest for his choice of words. That guest was Noah Lanard of Mother Jones, co-author of this report:

“You’re Here Because of Your Tattoos”
The Trump administration sent Venezuelans to El Salvador’s most infamous prison. Their families are looking for answers.

What's in a word? "It's closer to a factory farm than to a prison," Lenard then said. Almost surely, some of the people shipped to that "infamous prison" weren't gang members at all. 

They were shipped away to a brutal place, possibly never to return. However we might think of this, this isn't some simple, recognizable act of "deportation."

Almost surely, some of those people weren't gang members at all! Plainly, Karoline Leavitt doesn't seem to be up to the task of caring about such possibilities. 

To her, they're all "vicious" gang members, no further questions asked. In fairness, that may be the best she can do at this point in her life.

The recent "arrest" of the student at Tufts made us think of the arrest of Anne Frank. It sent us back to Francine Prose's remarkable book about that world-famous, cosmic breakdown in human behavior.

(Francine Prose: Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife. 2009.)

We thought of the person(s) who arrested Anne Frank as we saw the Tufts student taken away. In every population, there are people who are willing to do such things, possibly even eager. 

That's simply the way our species is built. In our morning reports, we'll arrive at that topic by the end of the week.