That reason is that the administration has totally misunderstood the social structure and relationships in Minnesota (and probably elsewhere, but I can only speak to what I know). These individuals who are being taken from our community are our neighbors that we know. The are the children our children know. They are the caretakers that our elderly in nursing homes know. We do not see these these people being removed as some seamy underbelly of the population that people fear. They are us. One member of our congregation who has been here for 35 years was taken. In social interactions, the possession of papers showing citizenship does not enter in. So when people who have fully assimilated into our society are taken away indiscriminately, we react protectively of our society that is being ripped apart. These actions are doing us no favors. By contrast, the presence of 3000 aggressive masked and armed agents with absolute immunity from local accountability seems much more like an invasion than the targets of their actions, who are also part of us.
But to some degree, wouldn't that be true of just about any federal law that's unpopular in a specific state or jurisdiction?
It's going to be perceived as an "invasion" of sorts, and any force used in enforcing a federal mandate (that a jurisdiction has been specifically declining to enforce) is going to feel like an overreach to people involved.
Practically speaking, would you see this as similar to the confrontation that happened between the feds and the Nevada ranchers back in 2014 (often referred to as the "Bundy Ranch Standoff")
As a refresher on the details and some similarities-
Running afoul of federal rules, and state and local authorities declining to enforce:
Nevada ranchers in the area had technically been violating federal rules about allowing their herds to graze on land that was designated as being owned by the Bureau of Land Management, and not doing it through the proper channels (which requires filling out paperwork, getting approved, and paying grazing fees). Local county Sheriffs had been declining to take any action because they were members of the community, and quite frankly, sympathized with the ranchers.
Ideological differences:
Much like some of the protestors in MN believe "there shouldn't be such a thing as an
illegal immigrant", the ranchers believed "there shouldn't such a thing as
federal grass that free range livestock can't freely eat" (despite the federal rules saying otherwise)
Appeal to "this is way we've done it for a long time"
The multi-generation ranchers had been doing that for quite some time, and had the attitude of "this is the way we've been doing it for decades, and nobody had been bothering us all that much before...just because there's a new batch of leadership in hundreds of miles away in DC, why should we have to change the way we've been doing things if people around here don't have a problem with it?" (and some of the same arguments were made that the ranchers were providing a service, the food people eat, and used that as an appeal for relaxing the rules)
Hostile response to eventual enforcement:
After decades of non-compliance, and the feds saying "Okay, we've been trying to get through to you since 1993, people in other areas don't like the fact that they're paying taxes towards programs to preserve and maintain federal lands and the ecology, and then you guys have hundreds of cows tearing the place up and leaving cow poop everywhere and getting into the ground water and ruining habitats, and the new administration has prioritized environmental concerns since that's what their voters wanted, we're sending in the federal agents, making arrests, and impounding your equipment and livestock"
The hostile response was about 300 ranchers and locals standing guard (armed) to make sure nobody could take their stuff, and that nobody would arrest their neighbors.
To everyone outside of that community, they looked like lunatic militant nutjobs, but the people in that community sincerely felt that they occupied the moral high ground (even if that perception flew in the face of federal rules)
That's why I think it's important to sort of "zoom out" on some of these situations and look at it from outside the bubble. People inside the bubble are always going to appeal to the status quo that they've become accustomed to.