Comment by temp8830

There is absolutely nothing wrong with flying Mexican flags. Americans fly flags of other countries all the time. There are English flags all over a nearby pub in my area. Heck, there is an entire national holiday for celebrating the Irish—a holiday for which the Defense Department made an exception to its policy of avoiding cultural observances.

The overreach by the current administration is what is driving the volume of protest activity. Specifically the high-volume targeting of lawful residents and Hispanic-looking citizens, and the “show your papers” geographical sweeps—none of which fit typical American notions of what is lawful.

To some extent this overreach is intentional, as an exercise in generating social media content, and to intentionally make people upset as a pretext for deploying greater levels of force.

It also seems politically performative since the current administration is focusing efforts in Chicago, Minnesota, Maine, etc, not Texas or Florida where there are far more undocumented immigrants.

There were protests against the Obama deportation campaign but they were far smaller because the campaign itself stayed within bounds that fit most people’s notions of lawfulness and propriety. They also did not make the huge mistake of deciding in advance to all-out defend every single bad decision by every law enforcement agent. That alone is a huge factor in the pushback that officials are getting, even from GOP and 2A leaders.