吃瓜大本营

On April 6, 2018, President Trump issued an official with the following subject line: Ending 鈥淐atch and Release鈥� at the Border of the United States and Directing Other Enhancements to Immigration Enforcement.

If the subject didn鈥檛 have the word immigration in the second clause, it might have seemed as if the president was talking about fish. 鈥淐atch and release鈥� is a recreational sports fishing term referring to the conservation practice of catching a fish and returning it to the water.

But people are not fish, and using a phrase, even one with the valence of a humane practice, serves to dehumanize the human beings being led away in handcuffs. The phrase actually describes allowing people who are seeking asylum to wait for their hearing in the community, rather than in custody. They are not freed, but tethered, always by law, often by more: Sometimes the asylum-seeker must wear an ankle monitor. Sometimes she must pay a bond. Sometimes the tether is administrative: checking in regularly with immigration officials.

It鈥檚 a lot easier to just say 鈥渃atch and release,鈥� but it鈥檚 inaccurate because it obscures all of those important points.

The phrase has been used by the government in the immigration context since at least as far back as the George W. Bush administration, but it did not become part of the popular lexicon until Donald Trump ran for president. According to an by the , a global database that monitors the world鈥檚 broadcast, print, and web outlets, the media鈥檚 use of the phrase began to increase toward the end of 2016, which is when then-candidate Trump was campaigning on his hardline immigration policies. It spiked dramatically once he was elected, hitting an all-time high in June when the administration implemented its 鈥渮ero tolerance鈥� policy to prosecute every person who crossed the border illegally.

Trump is a master with catch phrases: 鈥淒rain the swamp鈥� (put an end to government corruption), 鈥渓ittle rocket man鈥� (North Korea鈥檚 leader, Kim Jung Un), 鈥渇ake news鈥� (any reporting he disagrees with). But the media did not use those phrases, unless they were quoting Trump.

鈥淐atch and release,鈥� by contrast, is readily used by most media organizations. It even has its own . It likely caught on because it conveys a lot of information succinctly, which is the useful thing about metaphors. But it does not convey the actual policy 鈥� the image it summons is of migrants being released with no tether, which is not the issue at all. And, of course, likening human beings to fish is inherently degrading.

On July 11, The New York Times published an saying that after several readers expressed their concern with the newspaper鈥檚 use of the phrase, the Times would use it 鈥渙nly in reference to the administration鈥檚 use of the phrase.鈥� The paper鈥檚 deputy editor, Kim Murphy, said that she hadn鈥檛 thought of the phrase as dehumanizing. 鈥淚 personally would never have thought of it as a way of equating human beings to a fish. Yet of course by adopting a fishing metaphor, it does precisely that,鈥� she said.

In their seminal book, 鈥� University of California, Berkeley, cognitive linguist and University of Oregon philosophy professor argued that metaphors invade our neural pathways and shape our thinking about an issue without our realizing it. Subsequent scientific and social research has shown this to be true.

鈥淲e know from neuroscience that most thought is unconscious, carried out by neural circuitry,鈥� Lakoff in a recent blogpost. 鈥淢uch of that unconscious thought is metaphorical.鈥�

The problem with dehumanizing metaphors, according to Caroline Tipler, a research social scientist at the American Bar Foundation who wrote her PhD dissertation on dehumanizing rhetoric in the immigration context, is that they seep into your brain and unconsciously frame the way you start to think about immigrants over time.

鈥淲hen you hear an animal metaphor, you assimilate the information into that frame,鈥� Tipler said in an interview. 鈥淪emantic labels are activated in the mind and that label activates another label downstream. If you use the term 鈥榬ounding up鈥� you may not immediately think of cattle, but downstream, you may associate the rounding up of immigrants with animals. You don鈥檛 notice it, but the metaphors affect the way you process information further downstream."

In the case of immigration, the metaphor can influence how you think the issue should be addressed. As Tipler noted, previous administrations have used flood metaphors. Accordingly, when immigrants 鈥渇lood鈥� across the border, the solution becomes to build barriers or dams. But with animal metaphors, the solution points to detention, at the least.

鈥淎nimal metaphors clearly fit into how Trump has tried to frame the issue,鈥� Tipler said. 鈥淲hen you have bestial metaphors, the solution focuses more on safety issues. Trump has framed immigration around law enforcement and crime, the need to lock them up.鈥�

鈥淐atch and release鈥� likens immigrants to a fish. The point of catching a fish is either to kill it or for the thrill of the catch. Neither is appropriate for what the government is supposed to be doing with people seeking asylum, which is not to punish, imprison, or even deport them, but rather initiate immigration proceedings and take appropriate measures to make sure they up for the proceedings.

Trump is by no means the first leader to deploy dehumanizing metaphors to achieve his nefarious goals. The Nazis labeled Jews 鈥渞ats,鈥� 鈥減arasites,鈥� and 鈥渧ermin,鈥� in their quest to exterminate them. Hutu extremists who carried out genocide against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda referred to their victims as 鈥渃ockroaches.鈥� Trump has warned that immigrants 鈥溾�� the U.S.

Popularization of a fishing metaphor is gentle by comparison. But as metaphors go, it鈥檚 precisely that subtlety that is so dangerous. The Trump administration is using the term to make the case for detention. The rest of us, and certainly the media, should not take the bait.