Yes, I think there would've been massive protests against the US federal government doing anything at all to be effective at deporting illegal immigrants. Significant numbers of ideologically-dedicated people think that not allowing foreigners to immigrate to the US or deporting foreigners who have illegally immigrated is an immoral, Nazi-equivalent policy that they have a moral obligation to disrupt. The masks and other shows of force from federal immigration enforcement are a reaction to the protests designed to keep individual ICE agents safe and effective; and to demonstrate to illegal immigrants that the federal government is serious about deporting them, violently if necessary, in order to try to incentivize them to leave voluntarily.

> Otherwise it reads like DARVO tactics. If we were talking about a relationship it sounds like -- Person A emotionally abuses Person B to the point of person B pushing back, and then Person A using the fact that Person B reacted (perhaps adversely) as justification for even more emotional abuse.

We're not talking about an interpersonal relationship, we're talking about mass political actions and the authority of national-scale governments.

I am talking about American support for a working legal immigration process, and enforcing that process. Not everyone agrees about exactly what it should look like.

I'm not talking specifically about the actions Trump is taking or the job ICE is doing currently. The current sentiment around ICE is very negative.