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Some bloodshed is priced into immigration law enforcement, especially after decades of intentionally lax enforcement. Of course, the alternative is not 'no bloodshed', but just different victims in different places and a net increase in bloodshed overall. The rest is propaganda.
The alternative is enforcing existing laws against employers of undocumented immigrants in red states where they are concentrated the most. It is it not happening due to fear of backlash - if ICE was hauling away CEO's it would have 90% approval rate. But, instead, you have violent street circus to satisfy sadism and bloodlust of MAGA base. You really do not have to be tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist to understand what is going on.
This reads as nonserious when we JUST had a reveal and discussion of billions with a "B" worth of dollars being fraudulently appropriated for essentially fake businesses run by various immigrant groups, with one standout being the Somalis.
Largely in blue states.
Targeting employers would ignore this particular flow of tax dollars into dubiously legal immigrant communities who have seemingly separated themselves from 'legitimate' society and operate insular networks with outsized political influence.
That seems like a pressing matter that can't be ignored.
Por qué no los dos?
I'd guess the reason we can't currently do both is the sheer amount of enforcement resources that are tied up in dealing with the active interference from protestors and state officials.
In theory, it should be simple enough to identify the largest employers with large numbers of illegals on the payrolls, throw the book at one or two of the CEOs, and let incentives take their course.
I am... very skeptical that the reason the administration isn't going after businesses is that those darn protesters are tying up too many resources, and if they all went home and localities stopped declaring themselves sanctuary cities, we'd start seeing CEOs arrested.
In theory it should be. Yet no one does this. Why?
For many years, I have heard, ironically from both open borders enthusiasts and even immigration conservatives, that we can't "really" crack down on employers because then crops would rot in the fields and restaurants and hotels would have to close. A tacit admission that we have entire sectors of the economy that are completely dependent on the existence of illegal labor.
I always found this a strange thing to admit, especially from liberals. "So... basically you want an underclass of underpaid, easily exploited labor with no real rights so your grocery bills will stay low?"
It's absolutely true that if we could magically teleport every last illegal out of the country, it would wreck a lot of the economy. In the absence of magical deportation rays, a serious effort to go after businesses depending on illegal labor would over time result in rising costs (you'd have to actually pay American citizens American wages to pick those crops and clean those hotel rooms).
I think this would be a good thing, but it seems to be a price even the so-called anti-immigrationists are not willing to pay.
So instead, what we have right now is absolute fucking theater. Does anyone think all this ICE sturm und drang is really going to result in a meaningful reduction in the number of illegals in the country? Because I'd like to check back in on that in one year, two years, and five years.
Illegals do not make massively less than citizens doing the same job. They are simply willing to do jobs it is difficult to get an American labor force on, and far more reliable than the non-working class that would theoretically be doing those jobs.
That's just "We should maintain an arbeiter class" with extra rationalizations.
You can get people to do any job, reliably, if you pay enough. We don't want to pay enough to entice Americans to do this work. So right now, the only way we can get a reliable workforce willing to do it at acceptable wages is by importing illegal labor. If you actually want to end mass illegal immigration, you have to solve the left side of the equation somehow.
You could solve the equation from either side and get the same result. Presumably, if you remove immigrants from the equation, then either we'll have highly-paid janitors or no janitors at all. And if this is an unworkable situation, then supply of underpaid servants, sufficiently desperate for work will be increased by political means, perhaps by cutting from various social safety nets, encouraging wealth inequality to foster an indigenous servant class. We'll go back to a time where maids and butlers were feasibly affordable.
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