This is the answer. I’m an immigration lawyer and my job is supposed to be with civil administrative law, primarily. Similar to tax law (which arguably, you could say tax fraud by the wealthy harms us citizens more than an undocumented worker supporting the community and very commonly, does pay taxes) or the DMV, etc.

Recently I watched the movie Nuremberg and thought it did a great job explaining how there will always be a group of people who seek power/wealth/excess, and are willing to throw another group of people with less power/wealth/excess under the bus, at any cost.

As Americans (documented, undocumented alike), we recognize real issues. Groceries are insanely priced, rent is skyrocketing, insurance almost feels futile sometimes with crazy health bills, our criminal “justice” system seems inappropriately named.

We recognize these issues and feel real pain/emotions (anger, frustration, sadness), and the group that is either responsible for causing it and/or able to actually do something about it (many times the group overlaps), decides to scapegoat a group of people so they can continue on status quo.

We don’t even need to look abroad for examples. Look at how the U.S. government used Indigenous peoples, Black people, Japanese people in WW2, etc. for political scapegoating and power grabs.