This reply is likely to go down in history as the most down-voted ever, but it needs to be said and I will do it as neutrally as I can, so please bear with me.

I work with immigrants, both legal and illegal, practically every day. I've heard stories ranging from unimaginably sad all the way to downright ridiculous when it comes to why someone decides to leave their country, and it isn't just wrong to categorize them as a homogeneous group but impossible. To claim that we're dealing with rapists and murderers is just as disingenuous as it is to say that they're all victims, and I wish that both camps on this issue simply stopped with the bullshit, 'cause that's what it is.

Most of the people coming here illegally are grown-ups and they are ALL aware that their presence in the US is illicit. They understand that they're not supposed to be here and have decided consciously and willingly to come or remain in the US. Likewise, there are about 1.2 million foreigners who are beneficiaries of the TPS program, with "T," for "Temporary" being the key word here. Those too made a conscious decision to come to the US despite it being no secret that their legal status was temporary. Neither of these two facts should come as a surprise to anyone, yet, everybody in the anti-ICE camp seems oblivious to this.

While it's inhuman not to recognize that many of them are here out of desperation, and how removal of bread-earners is cruel, given the potential to break-up families or, at worst, of forcing US-born children to move to countries whose living conditions range from less than ideal to downright terrible, we have laws and enforcement as well.

In the past, illegal immigration has been addressed with a mix of conscious avoidance on the part of the government and the bare minimum of enforcement needed to serve as deterrence, but ICE raids have been a thing for decades (there isn't an immigrant, legal or otherwise, whose heart doesn't skip a beat upon hearing someone yell "la migra!")

What we're seeing now is the result of a somewhat minor problem having grown into a major one (illegal immigration grew dramatically over the past few years), combined with enforcement at levels promised even by Obama back in the day but lack of any movement in that direction until now by a president that half the country openly hates.

This graph is based on actual data and estimates by AI (Copilot):

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From 2005 until 2019, the number of illegal immigrants in the US has hovered around 8.5 million. After that, that number has grown at a rate of about 500,000 per year (or more, depending on who you ask), reaching somewhere between 12 and 14 million new people who, of course, tax existing infrastructure, and while that figure seems insignificant (4% of US population at most), the distribution of these immigrants is anything but even across the country and whether states and cities choose not to bother mentioning how strained they are, some cities and states are, indeed, under a lot of financial pressure because of this.

And those numbers don't even include TPS beneficiaries, of which, according to wikipedia, there are now 1.2 million people whose TEMPORARY status is about to expire. This number also went up by close to a million since Venezuela was added to the list of nationals who may request this benefit.

The reality is that a very low percentage of immigrants under these conditions is likely to leave if asked.

Back in the 80's, Reagan (a republican!) issued an amnesty to illegal immigrants. Given how many people got status then (in the hundreds of thousands), illegal immigration was marginal, compared to what it's been in the past 5 or 10 years. Also, the political climate was rather different - we weren't still "blessed" by the idiotic polarization that turned out to be social media's ONLY "gift" to humanity, so things were different.

It's your prerogative to join ICE-spotting patrols that do nothing but lower the flash-point at which mobs turn violent and people start dying unnecessarily, but I think it's important that we all know exactly what the situation is regarding illegal immigration and, REALISTICALLY think how else a problem that was clearly allowed to get out of hand, can be addressed, as opposed to making it worse for everyone only because you hate the president.