This Week in Words: July 20–26, 2019

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) released a man that they mistakenly apprehended, or took into custody, three weeks ago. Francisco Erwin Galicia was wrongfully held on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant but he is, in fact, a citizen of the United States. Activist groups are seizing on cases like Galicia’s to point out the problems with America’s immigration policy.

President Trump took to Twitter to react to this week’s Congressional testimony by former Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. The President went so far as to thank the Democrats, his political rivals, for holding the hearings which many observers say made Democratic leaders and Mueller look bad. A cabal is a group of people that pursue underhanded aims in secret so they will not be exposed.

There is now a law in Canada that requires the replenishment of fish populations, which is one way to improve the health of the Earth’s oceans. The plan also has potentially beneficial economic consequences for nearby communities involved in the repopulation effort. A catalyst provides the stimulus for an event to occur. It makes something else happen.

The Justice Department will approve the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. Mergers within the same industry can lead to less competition and create a monopoly, which usually concerns the government. To avoid this, one of the two companies will have to sell assets to a third company, keeping the overall competition in the wireless industry about the same by making the third company into an important competitor. A concession is something one gives up in order to reach a compromise.

Mueller’s testimony before Congress this week was largely an affirmation of the content of his previously released report. Mueller emphasized that his findings did not clear the President of obstruction of justice. Trump has often claimed that the report found there to be no collusion and no obstruction, but Mueller made a point of saying that the president was not exculpated of those charges.

Earlier this month, President Trump revealed his plan to change the rules under which an immigrant can seek asylum in the U.S. Two activist groups appeared in court this week, claiming that the proposal would do irreparable, or permanent, harm to the immigrants denied asylum. The organizations lost, with the judge pointing out that those in court, the activists, would not be affected by these changes, and therefore they weren’t in a position to sue.

Boris Johnson, the leader of the U.K.’s Conservative Party, became the new British Prime Minister this week. Theresa May, the previous Prime Minister, resigned because she could not broker a deal for Britain to exit the European Union which Parliament would accept. Now Johnson faces an October 31st deadline to accomplish what May could not. Labyrinthine describes a problem so extremely complicated that it threatens to overwhelm those who try to solve it.

A deaf student at the University of Dundee in Scotland has developed signs in British Sign Language (BSL) for the technical terminology he encounters in his science classes. Words that don’t have signs associated with them have to be finger-spelled by interpreters, and that can take some time when long names of chemical compounds are involved. A lexicon is a like a mental dictionary of the words you know and use.

After intense protests by citizens in the streets of Puerto Rico calling for his removal, the Governor Ricardo A. Rosselló has resigned. Recently leaked transcripts of conversations with his staff revealed crude remarks about those who died in Hurricane Maria and suggested possible corruption in the administration. A repudiation is a refusal or a disavowal.

The protests in Hong Kong over an extradition bill that would make residents there subject to the laws of mainland China have intensified, and this week China suggested that it may send military forces to Hong Kong to control the demonstrations. If China does in fact send troops, it would be an unprecedented move that the whole world will be watching. Stark means obvious and clear, and is usually used to describe something serious or dangerous.