It’s #2, and the status quo for quite some time is that immigration laws were just not enforced, or administratively bypassed. That’s why there’s a lot of pushback.
That’s absolutely not why there’s a lot of pushback.
There’s a lot of pushback because of:
- a general sense of authoritarian policy degrading American democracy
- inhumane treatment of detainees
- illegal deportations happening with no due process (see option 1)
- humanitarian concerns over people being deported to states they’re seeking asylum from for valid and good reasons
- hyperbolic claims of every immigrant being a “rapist criminal” degrading public discourse leading to further profiling of anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant
I could come up with more but you get the point - the pushback is about _far more_ than whatever you’re toeing the line about here.
Obama artfully redefined “turned away at the border” into “deportation,” which most people imagine as ICE agents detaining and removing a person from the interior of the United States.
