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The nation could have functional normalized deportation enforcement. Cities could assist with ICE warrants just as they assist with other federal law enforcement. Cities might negotiate federal presence in specific areas or even coordinate arrests. If not oversight or assistance local police could bear witness as third parties more interested in the well-being of residents. Politicians could endorse organized protests while explicitly condemning vigilante efforts to interfere with federal law enforcement. These things could be done and relationships built while maintaining a meaningful opposition to Trump and ICE. There seem to be enough lawyers to obstruct 3 Trumps worth of deportation.
Alas, this is not the world we have built. Instead, we have sanctuary cities that have police forces forbidden from participating in this manner. We have politicians whose safest electoral option is to do nothing and order everyone else to do nothing. Except for the citizens who receive a fiery speech about invaders and the virtue of obstruction. All with a wink and a nod. The electorate responds, the inevitable occurs, and the winks and nods pays dividends in the form of a most exciting news story.
The more I see this play out the more I think this is the only way this was ever going to happen.
My city has more important things to do than deporting our own labor force. The police aren't "forbidden", our sheriff is elected by the people, and the people don't want him to spend resources on this nonsense. That's democracy in its purest form. If people don't want to live in our city, they can leave and go to a city and/or state with policies they agree with. That's why states' rights is such a good system.
The lack of internal hard borders is a major part of the draw of federation in the first place, and the USA's Constitution is broadly set up to prevent them (states are not allowed to refuse entry to citizens of other states). At the point where you're proposing bringing in internal hard borders, you're in practice talking about dissolving the USA along partisan lines (and possibly annexing the blue chunk to Canada, so that it's contiguous again). This is a colourable position, and one @FCfromSSC has been spruiking here for a while, but it's a rather-big ask; I would remind you of what happened the last time a chunk of the USA decided to secede.
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People leaving a city does not fix the dysfunction and chaos resulting from the city refusing to work with ICE.
That's still just forbidding the police from cooperating with ICE. A distinction without a difference.
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