You don't even know when my ancestors came over. Why do you think they were on the mayflower and not on a boat headed to Ellis island in the 1900s? We very much had laws back then, though appealing to the existence of immigration laws is a piss poor argument.

“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.” — Henry David Thoreau

Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to bring up laws, when the current administration really doesn’t adhere to them? Congress today barely does any work, Supreme Court is entirely partisan, and the president is taking bribes in the open.

In any case it’s not the deportation that most people necessarily have an issue with, it’s how they go about doing it. They even killed citizens in the process. Obama deported quite a few.