Trump’s Own Advisers Suddenly Unnerved as ICE Raids Take Horrific Turn

But is there any “right way” to carry out these policies within this adviser’s intended meaning of the phrase? The idea seems to be that one could achieve the full scale of mass deportations that Trump and Miller want, albeit in a way that would achieve wide public support. And there are huge problems with this notion.

For one thing, the core idea of removing this many undocumented immigrants—and the classes of them now getting deported—is itself deeply unpopular, even as an abstract goal. The Marquette Law School poll precisely gauges this by asking if respondents favor the deportation of people who have jobs, no criminal record, and who have lived here for some time. In November, it found that 56 percent of Americans oppose this. Trump’s nosediving overall approval on immigration—an Associated Press poll has him down to 38–61—almost certainly reflects this.

The dream of sanitized, popular mass deportations seems to rest on the idea that they can be carried out without mass societal disruptions—not to mention without the shocking imagery of roving paramilitary thugs tear-gassing, beating, and killing people. Accomplish this, and mass removals would no longer be unpopular even in the abstract.